‘She would have died’: Saskatoon woman saves life with naloxone kit

A Saskatoon woman has used naloxone kits multiple times to stop overdoses. Some experts say the kits are significantly helping decrease fatality in overdose cases.

Amanda Walker moved to Saskatoon a year ago. Already, she has twice used take-home naloxone kits to stop overdoses in her apartment building.

“I had just come home from shopping, and I was just about to go to my house, and I saw the woman on the stairs here,” Walker said of the most recent incident.

“She was laying flat on her back. When I saw her face, I thought she was dead, because her face and lips were completely blue and then I managed to see that her heart was going crazy, beating fast.”

It was not the first time Walker had administered naloxone to someone who was having an overdose, but it still scared her.

“My hands were shaking as I was trying to fill the vial because of the adrenaline and the scariness. It was scary. That one was scary; the first time I had to naloxone someone, it wasn’t scary, but this one was. Because if I didn’t find her when I did, she wouldn’t have had much longer. She would have been gone,” Walker said.

Since the incident, she has connected with the woman she helped. Walker says that although the woman is doing better, it was not her first overdose and likely will not be her last.

Although the number of overdoses in Saskatchewan is rising dramatically, the most recent data from the coroner’s report shows toxic drug deaths are going down. Some Saskatchewan experts say the kits are partially responsible for the falling fatality rates in overdose cases.

“The number of overdoses is astronomical this year and it’s not really going down,” Prairie Harm Reduction’s Miranda Deck said.