To Davis Schneider, his older brother Steven was \u201cform of like a Superman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe worked as a nurse up until he died. He worked each day to assist people in need,\u201d the\u00a0Toronto\u00a0Blue Jays player said in an interview with The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was form of like the massive popular guy who played a variety of sports and everybody form of loved him and I looked as much as him each day. Still do.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in November 2020, his brother died of an opioid overdose in a relative\u2019s home in Recent Jersey, where Schneider is from.<\/p>\n
Steven was 26 and alone in a room in the home.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring COVID, everyone was form of coping with some stuff. It was just (an) abnormal time,\u201d said Schneider.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMentally, he just wasn\u2019t in a extremely great place. And I didn\u2019t know that. He never really form of showed me he was form of struggling \u2026. And, , he fell into some drug stuff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Schneider didn\u2019t find out about naloxone \u2014 the drug that may reverse opioid overdoses and save lives if administered in time.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably essentially the most devastating thing is that he was alone, he wasn\u2019t with anyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Schneider now thinks if someone had been together with his brother and had naloxone, his life might have been saved.<\/p>\n
So when Emergent BioSolutions \u2014 the manufacturer of naloxone\u2019s brand-name Narcan nasal spray \u2014 invited Schneider to grow to be a paid spokesperson to boost awareness, the 27-year-old accepted, hoping to forestall other people from dying.<\/p>\n
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Receive the most recent medical news and health information delivered to you each Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
The corporate publicly announced the partnership on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Greater than 55,000 Canadians died within the opioid poisoning crisis between January 2016 and September 2025, in accordance with Public Health Agency of Canada data.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction says about 20 people die of opioid overdoses every single day within the country \u2014 and plenty of of those deaths might have been prevented by naloxone.<\/p>\n
But regardless that naloxone kits can be found free of charge across the country, \u00a0including in lots of pharmacies and health centres, much of most people doesn\u2019t pick them up, health experts say.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere is usually a denial about how near home opioid overdoses could be, and other people find themselves in scenarios or situations where they didn\u2019t expect to be,\u201d said Dr. Taryn Lloyd, an emergency department physician and addiction medicine specialist at St. Michael\u2019s Hospital in\u00a0Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s sometimes this concept that \u2018it doesn\u2019t occur to me or to the people around me.\u2019 And we all know that\u2019s not true. Unfortunately, opioid overdoses affect all people from all walks of life and all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n
When someone has an opioid overdose, they stop respiration and that\u2019s what results in death, Lloyd said.<\/p>\n
Naloxone reverses that effect, she said, noting that she sees many individuals dropped at the ER who wouldn’t have survived if someone they knew or a bystander hadn\u2019t given them the drug.<\/p>\n
Within the hospital, patients receive naloxone intravenously or through an intramuscular injection, Lloyd said.<\/p>\n
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