Russell’s friend Luca saves his life under a bridge
Preferred Name: Russell
Gender: Male
Age: Early 50s
Who is Russell?
Russell lives in an outer south-east Melbourne suburb. He describes his ethnic background as ‘Australian’: like both his parents, Russell was born in Australia. Russell’s primary source of income is a Commonwealth Disability Support Pension*. He has a number of health issues including respiratory problems. Russell is homeless and has overdosed a number of times. Recently, his friend used take-home naloxone to revive him. While he hasn’t gotten any himself yet, he is enthusiastic about it and thinks it is an ‘honour’ to save a life.
Brief Outline:
Russell describes an occasion when his friend Luca revived him. They were taking heroin together under a bridge. According to Luca, he overdosed, and Luca gave him naloxone to bring him round. It wasn’t until a couple of months later, when he saw Luca act swiftly to revive a woman in a park with naloxone, that he accepted that Luca really had given him the medication and saved his life. Now Russell is keen to learn everything he can about take-home naloxone and how to use it.
(Note: strong language)
I woke up quite confused and saw Luca, who calmed me down by explaining what was going on and how he had given me Narcan [naloxone]. I didn’t really believe him until a couple of months later when I saw him do the same thing for a woman in the park. Because Luca was quick with that needle, he saved her life. No one else in that park would have. We saw her staggering along, unsteady on her feet, then she fell to the ground. He ran over to see if she was breathing, and he just dropped his backpack, ripped it open and went boom. He didn’t miss a beat. Luca doesn’t come across like a firefighter going running into a burning building or something. Courage comes in all different shapes and sizes, mate.
That gave me a flash of realisation. Until I saw him do that, I didn’t believe he’d used the Narcan on me. I just thought, ‘You’re full of shit’, but I went along with him, saying ‘Yeah, yeah mate, no worries mate’, because he was my friend.
Waking up, I’d felt like a possum who fell out of a tree: ‘What the…?’ The Narcan brought me back, and I felt different, but I didn’t feel sick. That’s why it was very hard for me to believe that he’d given it to me. At that point I had a bit of a snooze, a power nap.
Reflecting on how Luca had revived him under a bridge, where no one else would have passed by and seen him, Russell said he had decided to learn more about take-home naloxone. ‘I want to know everything there is to know. I want to make sure I can use it and administer it properly.’
Recently, my friend Luca and I were sitting under a bridge when I took some heroin and overdosed. At the time I was rundown and tired, I hadn’t eaten for a couple of days and I was weak. If I’d had a couple of days off, I reckon I wouldn’t have overdosed from that shot, but I already had too much heroin in my system.
I woke up quite confused and saw Luca, who calmed me down by explaining what was going on and how he had given me Narcan [naloxone]. I didn’t really believe him until a couple of months later when I saw him do the same thing for a woman in the park. Because Luca was quick with that needle, he saved her life. No one else in that park would have. We saw her staggering along, unsteady on her feet, then she fell to the ground. He ran over to see if she was breathing, and he just dropped his backpack, ripped it open and went boom. He didn’t miss a beat. Luca doesn’t come across like a firefighter going running into a burning building or something. Courage comes in all different shapes and sizes, mate.
That gave me a flash of realisation. Until I saw him do that, I didn’t believe he’d used the Narcan on me. I just thought, ‘You’re full of shit’, but I went along with him, saying ‘Yeah, yeah mate, no worries mate’, because he was my friend.
Waking up, I’d felt like a possum who fell out of a tree: ‘What the…?’ The Narcan brought me back, and I felt different, but I didn’t feel sick. That’s why it was very hard for me to believe that he’d given it to me. At that point I had a bit of a snooze, a power nap.
Russell (M, early 50s, Vic, non-prescribed opioids) says that while saving a life is an ‘honour’, we should also think of the other positive effects on families.
The fact remains that if a bloke’s just dropped [overdosed] [and] you understand what’s going on because, obviously, there’s a needle next to him, or you can read a few of the signs because maybe you’ve […] been down that path yourself, [you should be able to help]. Now if you’ve got a lawyer there, a doctor there or an accountant or a mechanic, all these people, you know […], if they can’t bloody administer something, [and] you [can] just step forward […] and save a life – well, mate it’s an honour. […] That person, at that time, if they are revived from it, may not appreciate it [there and then], but when you throw a stone into a pond, people are too busy looking at the splashes instead of the ripples. What about the family? What about the family that would be affected by the death?