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In this section you’ll find participants’ accounts of responding to overdose and the use of take-home naloxone. The people and stories in this section were carefully selected to highlight the diversity in backgrounds and experiences. While this website is not able to tell every possible story of overdose and take-home naloxone in Australia, it can show just how different people and their experiences are. In the stories can be found details of the many important concerns and circumstances our participants negotiated in saving lives in the community.

This section does not include the experiences of all participants. As it focusses on personal experiences of overdose and take-home naloxone, participants who had not encountered overdose or used naloxone do not appear. Overall, 26 of the 46 people who consume opioids are included. The remaining 20 had not encountered opioid overdose or in one case was not able to recount such events in enough detail to create a story for the site.

The stories presented here rely on participant reports of overdose. Some experiences may not conform to medical definitions of overdose, and some responses described may not reflect medical advice.

While these narratives were written from the interview transcripts and rely on their own words, some aspects have been paraphrased to improve coherence and readability. In making these changes we have worked hard to remain faithful to participants’ original meaning and intentions. Some experiences may also be presented in other sections of the website, using more detailed quotations.

Jamie loses her partner to an overdose

Preferred Name: Jamie

Gender: Trans-woman

Age: Early 30s

Who is Jamie?

Jamie lives with her partner Tim and a friend in an eastern Sydney suburb. She describes her ethnic background as ‘Australian’: like both her parents, Jamie was born in Australia. Jamie is currently unemployed and her primary source of income is a Commonwealth Newstart Allowance*. She has completed overdose response training and has used take-home naloxone to reverse an overdose on one occasion. Overall, she thinks take-home naloxone is a ‘really good idea’ and that even people who are ‘not drug users’ should learn how to use it.

Brief Outline:

Jamie describes an occasion last year when her then partner Josh overdosed at his mother’s house in a rural area. Josh was taking methadone and another substance at the time, and he overdosed after also taking some heroin. An ambulance was called but paramedics were unable to revive him. Jamie was with him, and she was terribly affected by the whole experience. She has witnessed a lot of overdoses and is glad she now knows the signs to watch for, and what to do, having recently done overdose response training.

Jamie's Story:

Last year, my partner Josh and I were at his mum’s house in the country. I was with him when he took some heroin, and overdosed and died. I was helpless. I couldn’t help him.

His mum was home at the time, so she got involved. The ambulance and police came. I was distraught at the time, just a mess. He was on methadone and had taken some pills, so I think it was the combination that led to the overdose. His death has affected me a lot; it woke me up a bit. I’ve got depression from it.

I do think about overdose. I’ve had three overdoses this year myself. To try to avoid it, I take heroin in the same room as my partner, Tim, and usually I go first, so he can see how it affects me, or he goes first. I also split it up into portions; if I got new stuff, I usually test it first then split it up depending on how it felt. Tim did the overdose response training with me, so now we should both know what to do.

In the past, there have been lots of times I’ve been there when someone has overdosed, and I’ve turned them on their side in the recovery position and called the ambulance.

I decided to do overdose response training because of my experiences with people dying from overdoses. I’ve witnessed a lot of them. I didn’t know the signs of an overdose, or what to look out for. Had I known about those things, it may have turned out differently for people I’ve known.

Reflecting on naloxone and her recent overdose response training, Jamie told us, ‘It’s a really good idea and more people should learn it; even if they are not drug users, they should learn it.’

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Last year, my partner Josh and I were at his mum’s house in the country. I was with him when he took some heroin, and overdosed and died. I was helpless. I couldn’t help him.

His mum was home at the time, so she got involved. The ambulance and police came. I was distraught at the time, just a mess. He was on methadone and had taken some pills, so I think it was the combination that led to the overdose. His death has affected me a lot; it woke me up a bit. I’ve got depression from it.

I do think about overdose. I’ve had three overdoses this year myself. To try to avoid it, I take heroin in the same room as my partner, Tim, and usually I go first, so he can see how it affects me, or he goes first. I also split it up into portions; if I got new stuff, I usually test it first then split it up depending on how it felt. Tim did the overdose response training with me, so now we should both know what to do.

In the past, there have been lots of times I’ve been there when someone has overdosed, and I’ve turned them on their side in the recovery position and called the ambulance.

I decided to do overdose response training because of my experiences with people dying from overdoses. I’ve witnessed a lot of them. I didn’t know the signs of an overdose, or what to look out for. Had I known about those things, it may have turned out differently for people I’ve known.

Jamie (trans-woman, early 30s, NSW, non-prescribed opioids) reflects on the lives that could have been saved had she known about take-home naloxone earlier.

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It’s a really good idea and more people should learn it. Even if they’re not drug users, they should learn [how to use naloxone]. I didn’t know the signs of an overdose before, or what to look out for, and that was one of my biggest problems. If I knew about those things, things may have been different for people I’ve known [who] have [had] overdoses. [For example,] snoring, loud snoring. I never knew that [was a sign of overdose], I thought that was just normal […] No one taught me it and so I wasn’t aware of what an overdose entails […] Now I know more about it.

Similarly, Jamie (trans-woman, early 30s, NSW, non-prescribed opioids) explains that losing her partner to an overdose prompted her to complete overdose response training.

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Well, because I have had people die from overdoses and stuff, and that’s why I decided to do [the training] and, yeah, I pretty much [now] know how to do intramuscular injections. My last partner […] died of an overdose, so yeah, and I was helpless, I couldn’t help him […] It’s affected me a lot. It kind of woke me up a bit. I’ve got depression from it […] I was pretty distraught at the time, so yeah, I was just a mess.