Narcan implemented at WKU during fall semester

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – At Western Kentucky University, a new way to save lives is being introduced in the fall semester.

“Our student government association approached us in the spring semester and they secured a grant to purchase Narcan, and they wanted to put it in the residence halls as well as in the fraternity and sorority houses. They deployed those late in the spring and we have deployed this into each of the residence halls over the summer. So it’ll be ready when the students move back in this fall,” David Oliver, Emergency Manager at WKU says.

How do you use Narcan? It’s very similar to a nasal spray used during sinus season.

“When you open up the box, you’ll find an administration set that looks like this. It just opens up… we take out this dispenser, and this part goes up in the person’s nose. Then we just squeeze this red button and that atomizes… it makes a mist out of the Narcan that’s stored in here,” Jim Williams, Program Manager of Safety & Preparedness says.

Oliver says adding Narcan to campus is huge for students, since they don’t have to go through training to use it.

“It allows bystanders to administer this sooner, which is a good thing… and same thing with automatic defibrillators, if somebody goes into cardiac arrest… being able to deploy that, it is access to the general public for them to go ahead and administer. It is very easy to do, they can open it up, pull the cap off, and it’s just like nasal spray,” he says.