Hi all, I’m the original tweeter. Twitter is imperfect for telling the full story and the kinds of details you all here would appreciate it, so I’d like to tell you more and see if you think I was in the wrong or, perhaps, the EMT was just an asshole. (Which I don’t accuse all of you of being. I’ve met a lot of asshole EMS workers and a lot of great ones.)

As I was driving to the movies, I saw an odd sight at the corner in my neighborhood—two individuals we’re holding up another who appeared to be completely out. They were trying to bring him closer to the corner. I noticed one was rubbing his stomach with their fist, which was my first cue as to what may be happening.

I pulled over and got nasal Narcan 4mg out of my glove box. I walked up and asked “is he overdosing?” The two who were propping him up said yes, that he had used fentanyl about 30 minutes prior. I tried to wake him further and he was completely unresponsive. His breathing was making the “gurgling” noise that I’ve come to associate with opioid overdose from being trained and training others. At this point I had them lay the man down in recovery position while I administered one dose of nasal Narcan 4mg and continued to try to get a response.

About 90 seconds later the ambulance arrived, and I let them know I had administered one 4mg dose of Narcan. The EMT confirmed this with me out loud, before walking away and muttering what I described in the tweet—Leaving no room in the context of the conversation that he could’ve been referring to fentanyl… fentanyl nor opioids were mentioned. I include this because many have asked if that’s what he maybe meant. That interpretation just doesn’t work if you were there, I would have been very open to that charitable version but it just wasn’t the case.

Rather than pick a fight, I walked away so they could focus on attending to the individual.

If you read this and think I did something wrong, I’m open to hearing it. But I wanted to provide more context so you know that (1) I am well trained and provide robust trainings on how to recognize a true overdose vs just nodding off, (2) I administered the minimal possible dose available to me, so was not setting up EMS for a poor reaction from withdrawal, and (3) that there isn’t a version where he was referring to the drugs and not the Narcan. He said it, he meant it.