TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — When she was 11 years old, Sarah Lynn Wingrove tried drugs for the first time. She started using marijuana and later on in life, back in 2005, she got hooked to prescription pills.
Years later she started using heroin and little did she know, much of it was cut with fentanyl.
“You just end up getting into more and more things and it just spiraled out of control…..A lot of people that have never dealt with addiction personally don’t understand that at a certain point it’s really not a choice,” Wingrove said.
It wasn’t her choice to get addicted to fentanyl, but she said it was becoming so prominent in every drug, and that’s why she got hooked.
After getting clean from drugs for a few months, she relapsed and overdosed. That’s when her roommate found her, did CPR on her, and waited until EMS arrived and issued her several shots of NARCAN.
“Everybody should have access to NARCAN, everybody should know how to administer the NARCAN, because it’s, you never know. People think it’s just in certain parts of town and it’s literally everywhere and it can save somebody’s life,” she said.
Saving the lives of people overdosing is the mission of the Northwest Fire District.
Their battalion chief, Mike Rollman, said they issue NARCAN to reverse the effects of opiates. NARCAN is sprayed into a patient’s nose and the medicine is absorbed by their body and helps them to breathe.
Northwest Fire said they responded to 144 drug overdose calls in 2020, 150 in 2021, and this year, so far, 169.
Rollman said within the past few years, the public has started to become more aware of NARCAN and how to use it.
“We’ve seen an increase in bystanders and family members who do have NARCAN available for them and have administered it to their friends or family members,” he said.
However, NARCAN can’t take away addiction.
After getting arrested and clean a few years after being issued NARCAN, Wingrove still graduated from the Pima County Drug Court program last year.
“When was the point when you said ‘I need to stop using drugs’?” KGUN9 reporter Andrew Christiansen asked Wingrove.
“The last time that I used before my arrest, honestly scared me so bad….I knew in my heart that if didn’t stop I would die,” Wingrove said.
She said she wants to inspire others who are abusing drugs or thinking of quitting by letting them know everyone needs help.
“If I can give somebody else that hope to reach out, and just make that life-changing decision, because it really is,” she said.
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