The Dougherty County Coroner’s Office will partner for the second year with Dougherty County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to hold an Opioid Awareness event for Dougherty County School System middle and high school students on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Albany Civic Center.

With help from drama students in Dougherty County schools, the re-enactment will feature a scenario where teens overdose and medics are called on the scene. The event will stage every-thing from the death to the funeral and is designed to educate both middle and high school stu-dents in the community on the danger of opioids.

“I’ve been called to many deaths that have resulted from a drug overdose,” said Michael Fowler, Dougherty County Coroner. “We need to give students and our community a true ‘wake-up call’ when it comes to the abuse of opioids and communicate that they can lead to death.”

At the end of the program, this year’s guest speaker will be Shane Waller, who lived years of his life addicted to drugs and alcohol. Since turning his life around, Waller spends time mentoring addicts and helping them to get into rehabilitation facilities.

In 2018, Dougherty County EMS responded to over 130 overdose calls for medical assistance. Of those, 67 vials of Narcan had to be administered by paramedics. The highest volume of calls for overdoses came during the months of June and July. With patient age groups of Opioid use starting around 25 to 41, Sam Allen, Dougherty County EMS Director, said that they are also seeing an increase in seniors ages 60 to 69. He attributes this trend to more seniors having elected surgery and being given opioids for pain management.

“Our goal is to educate the youth in the community on the dangers of opioids and how addiction can lead to further drug addictions,” said Allen. “As they grow older, we want them to under-stand how addiction works and what it can lead to.”

Community partners for this event include Phoebe and Morehouse School of Medicine, who are committed to helping educate our youth and others in our community about this rising problem in the southwest Georgia region. Dougherty County School System is also a community partner.

“Drug abuse prevention is a community-wide issue and one that the Dougherty County School System (DCSS) supports,” said Superintendent Kenneth Dyer. “It is important that our students know that opioids and other controlled substances, along with illegal drugs, are dangerous and can negatively impact their lives. Awareness is critical and I appreciate the partnership with the Coroner’s Office, Dougherty County EMS, as well as local law enforcement, in delivering this message to our students.”

“Phoebe Putney Network of Trust and Morehouse School of Medicine are honored to share in this program,” said Angie Barber, Director of the Phoebe Network of Trust School Health Pro-gram. “This awareness event will help educate our students to be able to make the right decision to not use drugs. True partnerships that you will see in our presentation will show you how peo-ple working together can help save lives.”

Last year, the state of Georgia released a new Opioid campaign entitled “Don’t Run, Call 911.” Realizing there is an opioid abuse epidemic in the state and the entire country, Georgia created an amnesty law to protect victims and callers seeking medical assistance at drug or alcohol over-dose scenes.