The villages of Great Neck Estates, Port Washington and Nassau County police departments will be among 18 police departments on Long Island to receive a drug that can reverse the effects of a heroin overdoses, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced on Wednesday.
Under the state’s Community Overdose Protection program, the departments will be equipped with naloxone kits, a drug that can reverse the effects of a heroin overdose.
“The program is an essential part of our effort to combat the spike in heroin overdoses that is plaguing communities and families on Long Island and across New York State,” Schneiderman said. “By providing police officers with naloxone, we are making this life-saving overdose antidote available in every town, village and hamlet on Long Island.”
The village of Great Neck Estates and Port Washington police departments will be two of the seven village police forces throughout the county to receive the kits.
“When this came up, I just jumped on it,” Great Neck Estates Police Department Chief John Garbedian said.
Other village police departments in Nassau County to be equipped with naloxone kits are the Floral Park Police Department, Garden City Police Department, Glen Cove Police Department, Lynbrook Police Department and the Rockville Centre Police Department, Schneiderman said.
The 18 police departments on Long Island have been allocated a total of $222,788 to buy 2,452 naloxone kits and receive training on how to use them, Schneiderman said.
“It counteracts the [heroin’s] effect on the body and wakes the person up almost immediately,” Garbedian said explaining the drug.
The Community Overdose Protection program was introduced by Schniederman on April 3 and has spent more than $1.72 million for the purchase of 26,273 naloxone kits throughout the state.
Each kit, worth about $60 each, contains a zip bag with two syringes full of naloxone, two “atomizers” to administer the drug through the nose, gloves and a booklet on how to use the drug, Schneiderman said.
The drug, which has a shelf life of about two years, saved 563 lives in Suffolk County last year, Schneiderman said.
Garbedian said although his department primarily serves Great Neck Estates, his police officers would be willing to administer the drug outside of the village.
“If my cop can deliver it to the person, we’d administer it,” Garbedian said. “Jurisdictional boundaries would not matter.”
In the Town of North Hempstead, the villages of Kings Point, Lake Success, Great Neck Estates, Port Washington and Old Westbury have their own police force.
The rest of the town is under the jurisdiction of the Nassau County Police Department.
“In the past few months, some Nassau County police officers have been equipped with Naloxone kits, resulting in numerous lives having been saved from accidental heroin overdoses,” Nassau County Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said in a statement.
Third Precinct Commander Inspector Sean McCarthy said in an interview with Blank Slate Media that heroin overdoses are of “increasing concern countywide.”
McCarthy said cops are “nearing the end of the training program” and that “ultimately all cops will have [the kits].”
Garbedian, who has been Great Neck Estate’s police chief since 2007, said he witnessed a heroin overdose in the village in December of last year.
“That struck me pretty hard,” Garbedian said.
He said although there are not many heroin overdoses throughout Great Neck he believed “to have just one is big enough.”
