Traumatized passenger wants drug OD-reversing medication aboard buses after frightening incident

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This article was published 11/01/2024 (616 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man is calling for changes to city policy after he says a Transit bus passenger collapsed of a suspected drug overdose and received no medical care while on board.

Lee Olsen was on a route 18 bus Wednesday morning when a male passenger fell, hitting his head and getting stuck between a seat and the wall.

Olsen told the Free Press he checked on the unresponsive and bleeding man while another passenger called 911.

No one aboard had naloxone — medication used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose — or was able to provide medical support.

“We asked (the bus driver), you got rubber gloves? You got Narcan (a naloxone nasal spray)?” Olsen said. “Nope, not even a Band-Aid.”

He said the bus stopped and a Transit supervisor got on and administered naloxone via nasal spray; at that point, the man had been in medical distress for nearly 10 minutes. He said paramedics and police arrived on scene afterward.

Olsen, who called the experience traumatizing and prayed for the man who was taken away by ambulance, said city buses should be better prepared for such situations.

“They should have (naloxone) supply on the bus, no matter what,” he said. “I’ve got friends that walk around with it — they don’t do drugs, they walk around with it just in case.”

The Winnipeg Police Service confirmed a medical incident occurred on the bus and said the man survived.

In November, 92 Transit inspectors, supervisors and instructors received naloxone kits to use on passengers during suspected opioid overdoses or poisonings.

The possibility of providing Narcan to bus drivers was discussed, but the transit advisory committee said storing the spray would not be feasible because the temperature on buses is inconsistent.

Some staff at city facilities, including rec centres, indoor pools, fitness centres and libraries, are trained to administer the nasal spray.

City communications director David Driedger said bus drivers are trained to call the transit control centre in a medical emergency. He also noted training begins Monday for 21 peace officers and two supervisors in the Transit-based community safety team, who will be trained to respond to some medical issues.

“Officers will take part in classroom learning and scenarios that teach self-defence, security and de-escalation techniques to ensure trauma informed, empathetic responses to the mental health and addiction crisis in the community,” Driedger said in an email. “They will also be trained in first aid.”

Davey Cole, who co-ordinates Sunshine House’s mobile overdose prevention site, said street-drug supply toxicity is high now, so anyone in a public-facing job should be encouraged to carry naloxone.

“Folks who work in community areas should be trained in naloxone, folks who work in public service, like bus drivers…. Because of the toxic supply we’re seeing right now. I mean, I’ve been just walking down my street and have had to administer it at some point,” Cole said.

Sunshine House currently has an adequate supply of naloxone kits at its Logan Avenue centre, and is encouraging visitors to take as many as needed. The province provides approximately 600 kits every three weeks.

A supply issue that cut off the province’s distribution of naloxone last summer led some community groups to ask for help from other jurisdictions that had enough to share.

Sunshine House continues to receive 400 additional kits monthly through a free program in Ontario that provides naloxone to Indigenous people with treaty status. Individual staff at Sunshine House have applied for the program and provide the kits they receive to the organization.

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“I think we’ve just really been over-preparing because of the shortages in the past,” Cole said.

While Sunshine House hasn’t put out any recent drug alerts, staff has been seeing a recent increase in the fentanyl-based drug commonly referred to as “down,” resulting in more overdoses, Cole said.

As well, Saskatchewan community organizations are reporting an increase in the use of xylazine, a tranquilizer resistant to naloxone, which suggests the drug is likely to make its way here.

The Winnipeg Fire and Paramedic Service has administered 253 doses of naloxone since Jan. 1. There were 681 doses administered in December, and 5,281 during 2023 — the most since the city began collecting data in 2007.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.