Mayor, security guard rush to save man overdosing outside city hall Administered naloxone before paramedics arrived; ‘finally, we got a response from him’ By: Joyanne Pursaga Posted: 5:55 PM CDT Friday, Oct. 10, 2025

Mayor Scott Gillingham was wrapping up work at city hall Thursday, when a staff member looked out his office window and spotted a man overdosing.

The mayor rushed to grab a naloxone kit, which reverses opioid overdoses, then headed outside, alerting a security guard along the way.

Gillingham said the guard “took the lead immediately,” giving the man chest compressions and multiple nasal spray doses of the lifesaving antidote.

“When we got there, he was laying on his back on the ground, not breathing. And you could just tell … there was no doubt he needed intervention. And the people that he had been with … said he had overdosed,” said Gillingham Friday.

The mayor said he also gave the man a nasal spray dose and needle injection of naloxone.

“There was no doubt he needed intervention.”

“Finally, we got a response from him, and you could see him start to breathe again,” said Gillingham.

“(It’s a) credit to the security guard who’s trained and took the lead on this and did an excellent job. The person we were helping survived, the firefighter paramedics got there. He survived, and, in fact, walked away from the incident, ultimately. It was remarkable,” the mayor added.

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service responded to a medical emergency at the site at 5 p.m. Thursday, a city spokeswoman confirmed.

“The individual was not transported to hospital,” Julie Dooley wrote in an email.

The mayor said the incident marked the first time he’s given a dose of naloxone, since he learned how to do so two years ago.

He has kept one kit in his office and another in his car since then.

“Unfortunately, this is commonplace … We have such a drug crisis in our city right now that we need to continue to work on it and get upstream. It’s a health-care issue. It’s an addiction issue. And, so, it’s just indicative of the scale of the problem we’ve got right now,” said Gillingham.

The mayor noted front-line organizations working with the homeless use naloxone often, as do librarians and all emergency workers.

Thursday’s incident took place outside the city hall council building in the area facing Main Street.

A request to interview the security guard, Abdi Rahaman, was not granted Friday.

Overdoses tend to be more common from late fall to early winter, according to an agency that provides addiction services.

“We typically (only) respond to overdoses that happen within our drop-in (centre) … at this time of year,” said Levi Foy, executive director of Sunshine House.

Foy said Sunshine House staff responded to one overdose at the centre in September and another in October, while there were no overdoses there between January and August.

At its Mobile Overdose Prevention Site, which is based at Main Street and Logan Avenue, staff respond to about one overdose per day on average, up from about one every two days in the summer, he said.

Overdoses occur throughout the city but tend to be more visible downtown, where homelessness and addiction support services are often concentrated, said Foy.

He said a long-promised supervised consumption site and more affordable homes are desperately needed, since that would provide people with safer places to use drugs.

“If people are able to use at a slower rate and not face the circumstances of using outdoors or in public, they will not overdose as frequently … When you’re using outside or you’re using in the washroom at the public library … you often have to rush and you run the risk of trying to use as much of the substance as possible so that you don’t have to use again later,” said Foy.

Since naloxone has become more available over the last few years, the response to overdoses is improving, he said, with Sunshine House alone giving out about 50 naloxone kits per day at its mobile site.

Foy said he’s impressed the mayor keeps a naloxone kit handy.

“That’s really proactive for him to engage in that situation. Many people wouldn’t,” said Foy.

WFPS offered training to city council members to administer naloxone in January 2023, amid increased reports of city workers having to deliver the drug. The same month, city staff at recreation and leisure centres were provided with naloxone kits and trained to use them.

Coun. Vivian Santos said she has also kept a naloxone kit in her purse since taking that training, but has not had to use it yet.

“If I can save a life, I think it’s important that (I am) educated on how to use it.”

“Knowing the circumstances of what our city is facing with the massive amounts of overdosing and fentanyl poisoning, I thought it was important, as a community member … to have something (on hand) if a situation were to arise,” said Santos (Point Douglas).

She said she rushed out with her naloxone kit about two weeks ago when she suspected someone was having an overdose outside city hall. However, she did not use it after discovering the person was actually lying down to rest.

“It is unfortunate (that) it’s in the back of my mind. But … if I can save a life, I think it’s important that (I am) educated on how to use it,” said Santos.

In an email, a provincial ministerial spokesperson said “some members” of the NDP caucus and cabinet are trained to administer naloxone, though the government’s focus is on making naloxone and harm-reduction supports widely available.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

X: @joyanne_pursaga