JUDY WOODRUFF: When a county in Southern Ohio saw a sharp spike in the number of fatal opioid-related
overdoses, they responded by forming PORT, the Post Overdose Response Team.
Esther Honig of Side Effects, which is a Public Media project, reports how Ross County, Ohio,
has enlisted local law enforcement, addiction treatment services and the health department
to work together and help curb overdoses.
ESTHER HONIG: Every Wednesday, morning in Chillicothe, Ohio, this overdose task force
meets.
There's a police officer, a sheriff's deputy, and a social worker from a local addiction
treatment center.
The group sets out to follow up with each person in Ross County who overdosed the week
before.
Their mission?
Get them into treatment.
The program started after a string of fatal overdoses in 2016, and county leaders came
together to find a solution.
DAVE WEBER, Ross County Deputy Sheriff: Out of the meetings came a decision that we needed
some type of team to go out and speak with people that have overdosed, either their families
or both family and the overdose victim.
And somebody named it PORT, which is a Post Overdose Response Team.
ESTHER HONIG: PORT allows law enforcement to take on the role of a social worker.
They talk to residents about addiction and help them find treatment, even if that means
driving them to facilities out of state when there's nothing available in their area.
Today, the team follows up with just four overdoses.
In the past, they have had as many as 20.
DAVE WEBER: I would just like to come in one day, and we don't have any.
ESTHER HONIG: At their first stop, resident Chad Lurty is shocked when the PORT team tells
him his friend struggles with addiction.
CHAD LURTY, Ohio Resident: I think very highly of him, and my heart's broke.
I had no idea he had a problem.
ESTHER HONIG: Recently, PORT began offering training on how to use the overdose reversal
drug naloxone, also known as Narcan.
Dave Weber, one of the deputies, said that you're in a position to be really helpful
in this situation.
CHAD LURTY: I will try.
I don't want to see anybody die.
ESTHER HONIG: And you think you might go through the Narcan training?
CHAD LURTY: I'm going to very seriously consider that.
ESTHER HONIG: Here in Ross County, the rate of fatal opioid-related overdoses is nearly
double the national average and one of the highest in the state.
Now, PORT, with a relatively small budget, has managed to get people the resources they
need in time to hopefully prevent more of these overdoses from happening.
Still, not everyone supports what they do.
DAVE WEBER: We have some people that are upset that we give them Narcan.
You know, they say that it was this person's choice to do it, you know?
But we kind of -- we don't buy that.
My response to them is, what if it were your son, daughter, wife, or husband laying on
the ground?
Would you want us to turn around and walk away?
ESTHER HONIG: You guys need to go to them because these people are not in a situation
where they can necessarily seek out help themselves.
DAVE WEBER: Right, right, yes.
When we first get there, they're reluctant to speak with us.
We explain what we're there for, and we're not going to arrest them.
We're not there in a law enforcement capacity.
And most of them open up and talk to us.
ESTHER HONIG: Jessica Lutz overdosed at a store with her daughters.
She remembers when the PORT team came to her door a few days later.
JESSICA LUTZ, Resident in Recovery: My doorbell rang, and I was scared to death, because here
comes my mom, like, there's an officer and a woman at your front door and they want to
talk to you.
And I walked out there, and the officer said -- he said, I'm not here to arrest you.
I'm just here to make sure she's OK.
She would just like to talk to you.
And I met Tracy Hathaway (ph).
ESTHER HONIG: The social worker, who was also a recovering addict, convinced Jessica that
there were resources that would help her get clean.
JESSICA LUTZ: There is hope that people can recover.
She was doing it.
There was this place of people that were doing it all the time that I didn't know existed,
you know, all these recovery places that we don't hear about.
ESTHER HONIG: PORT got Jessica into outpatient care immediately, and after a month a bed
at a nearby recovery center.
Right now, there are only a few programs like this in Ohio, but local lawmakers recently
put aside over a million dollars to be able to replicate PORT in cities across the state.
And the stakes are higher than ever.
Each day, more than 142 people in the U.S. die from a drug overdose.
That's more than the number of people who die from gun violence and car accidents combined.
It's something that Jessica doesn't take for granted.
She came from rehab and credits PORT with having saved her life.
JESSICA LUTZ: Just to have that conversation after something like that happens, and no
matter who you are, that's so scary.
We don't want to die.
We just don't know how not to use.
And to find somebody that understands that and knows that we don't want to wake up and
do these things every day, we don't -- there's no pleasure in what we have to go through
each and every day, just to listen to that conversation and know that it really can happen
is what changed everything for me.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Esther Honig in Chillicothe, Ohio.