COOK COUNTY, IL – A woman is alive after a Cook County Sheriff’s Police officer equipped with naloxone used the opioid overdose antidote to revive her, Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced today.
At approximately 8:05 a.m. on Monday, the officer responded to a call of suspicious circumstances at a hotel room in the 1900 block of East Higgins Road in unincorporated Elk Grove Township. The officer did not receive a response after knocking on the door, which was ajar. Upon entering the room, he found a woman unresponsive and a syringe nearby. He administered the naloxone he had with him, and the 28-year-old Rockford woman woke up about a minute later. Elk Grove Township Fire Department paramedics transported her to an area hospital for further treatment.
This is the first time a Cook County Sheriff’s Police officer had administered the drug since the department began carrying the kits in June 2016.
In addition to Sheriff’s Police carrying naloxone, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and Cermak Health Services – a division of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System – have a naloxone distribution program at Cook County Jail, in which kits are given to previously identified individuals in custody upon their release from custody. The goal of the program is to prevent overdose deaths of individuals in custody vulnerable to use upon returning to the community, so they can seek treatment.
Since the program’s launch on Aug. 1, 2016, more than 2,900 individuals in custody have been trained on how to use the kits, and Cook County Jail staff have distributed more than 1,700 kits to individuals in custody leaving the jail.