Pitt State installs AEDs, NARCAN® boxes to help campus safety
Students, employees, and visitors to campus now have access to 25 NARCAN® boxes and 62 Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in the event of an emergency.
The NARCAN® boxes are being installed in residence halls and other areas with large concentrations of students.
A NARCAN® box provides access to a dose of NARCAN®, a brand of naloxone nasal spray. This lifesaving medicine can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose.
Opioid overdose is currently the leading cause of death among adults under the age of 50 in the United States. Opioid overdose is often accidental and the result of ingesting life-threatening amounts of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Pitt State’s boxes and doses were provided through grant funding in cooperation with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department.
“Fortunately, we have not experienced a fentanyl overdose on our campus,” said Executive Director of Police & Public Safety Stu Hite. “But we know it’s present in our community, so we need to be ready. We appreciate Sheriff Danny Smith’s leadership and initiative in helping make these boxes possible.”
The AEDs have been installed in each building on campus and at Block22 in Downtown Pittsburg. The medical device is used to help people experiencing sudden cardiac arrest: it analyzes a heart’s rhythm and, if necessary, delivers an electric shock to help it re-establish an effective rhythm. The American Heart Association has found that the survival rate of a victim nearly doubles when AED is administered along with CPR.
Hite credited Assistant Director Steve Rosebrough with taking on the project as part of an ongoing effort to ensure the campus is as safe as possible.
“I’m a graduate of Pitt State, I returned to work here because I care about it, and it was important to me that people on campus have access to life-saving measures,” said Rosebrough, who is a member of the university’s Public Safety Task Force.
The group meets monthly and has been a driving force to implement Active Violence Response training and related safety campaigns for departments, residence halls, and student organizations; severe weather sessions for the public and area first responders; National Public Safety Week activities; safety reels on Instagram; bike registration drives; and other safety measures.
In addition to the AEDs installed across campus, two AEDs have been assigned to university police officers on patrol and one is in Dispatch.
Rosebrough is adding the locations of the devices to the PulsePoint app, which can be downloaded to cell phones, and will monitor the devices regularly, replacing expired batteries and pads as needed.
This short video demonstrates how the units are to be used: ZOLL AED 3 Demonstration (youtube.com)