ROYAL OAK, Mich. (WXYZ) — There are more than 100 "Save a Life" free Narcan stations across Oakland County. All you have to do is pull it open and take out the Narcan.
Recently, 38 of the stations were targeted and all of the Narcan was taken from them.
“To steal it, that just deprives other people from having access to it,” said Dean Dauphinais, communications manager of Face Addiction Now.
Dauphinais knows first-hand about what Narcan can do.
His son Sam, who’s now in recovery, had a drug overdose in 2019 and police were able to save him after using Narcan.
“If we hadn't called 911 and if the Grosse Pointe police hadn't had the Narcan, our son probably would have died,” Dauphinais said.
Dean Dauphinais shares more of his son's story in the video player below:
Helping save people from overdoes is the reason why the Alliance of Coalitions for Healthy Communities have those Save a Life stations in multiple communities.
Recently, about 7,000 doses were taken from stations in Holly, Farmington Hills, Groveland and Royal Oak.
“The Save a Life stations are very unique to Oakland County and it's something we're very proud of that is something that we are kind of leading and charging the way of what it looks like,” said Megan Phillips, director of substance use disorder services at Oakland Community Health Network.
Phillips’ organization partners with the alliance to help people struggling with addiction.
She says right now, it’s unclear why someone would take so much Narcan.
“Our hope is that for whatever reason that it was taken, that hopefully it's for people who were in need, that it was needed, you know, for individuals,” Phillips said.
Phillips says right now, there are talks about how to make the stations more secure but still making sure they are accessible.
“For us, what's so important and how these boxes have been so successful in decreasing our overdose deaths in Oakland County. I think just in this past year, we decreased our overdose deaths by about 34%,” Phillips said.
The stations that were hit have all since been restocked.
