Searcy Police offering overdose emergency kits to 50 businesses

SEARCY, Ark. – A tool used to save lives is getting into the hands of more people in Searcy.

Dozens of overdose emergency kits are inside the police department to be placed evenly throughout the city.

The 50 kits contain naloxone spray, CPR masks, shields, and gloves. A $31K Comprehensive Stimulant & Substance Abuse federal grant for the Searcy Police Department Critical Response Intervention Tea funded them.

During 2023, police reported that 11 people died in Searcy from overdoses. Since 2021, 70 doses of naloxone have been recorded during Searcy Police responses, saving 56 people.

Lt. Todd Wells has worked within SPD since 2007 and remembers whenever officers were not equipped with the tool that can reverse an overdose in seconds. He stated when the COVID pandemic hit, "It was an avalanche."

"We would get these calls that someone was passed out at an intersection and turning purple," Lt. Wells said. "We were at that mercy, but now with naloxone, you can administer that, and it's lifesaving."

The lifesaving nasal spray is something they knew could make a big difference in more people's hands.

First Methodist Church on Main Street is one of the first partners to install the kit as a service primarily for the homeless community they provide for. Jeff Jackson said all his office staff received training to use the kit

"We're always here to do ministry for the least of these and sometimes people are going through some desperate times, and they try desperate measures, and they get themselves in trouble, and it's good to have something like this available to get them in their time of need," Jackson said.

Any Searcy business or organization is welcome to go to the police department to request their own and be ready to make a difference.

"Zero deaths, zero overdose that's our goal," Lt. Wells said.

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