DVD AIMED AT SAVING LIVES OF THOSE WITH DRUG OVERDOSE

WATERVILLE -- There were 34 fatal drug overdoses in Maine in 1997 --
19 determined by the medical examiner's office as accidental.

In 2006, there were 167 drug overdoses resulting in death, 135 of
them by accident.

"It's epidemic," said Marcella Sorg, director of the state's Rural
Drug and Alcohol Research Program at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy
Center at the University of Maine. "It really started to rise in the
late 1990s; it really began to rise rapidly in 2002."

Sorg, who studies all Maine drug-related deaths for the Office of
Chief Medical Examiner, said cocaine continues to be the biggest
problem, followed closely by prescription narcotics.

With that alarming spike in the number of drug overdoses, local
health, clergy and law-enforcement officials formed the Kennebec
County Overdose Task Force to help residents recognize the symptoms
of an overdose and learn how to respond.

Last week, the task force began distributing an educational DVD aimed
at teaching the public how to help someone who has overdosed on drugs.

"Save A Life," is a 10-minute video that could do just that, said
LeeAnna Lavoie, an overdose prevention health educator with
MaineGeneral Medical Center.

"The idea is to educate people about overdose. It's a huge problem in
all of Maine, particularly in Portland, central Maine and the Bangor
area," Lavoie said. "If people are overdosing, what can people around
them do to save their lives."

The primary detail in saving the life of someone who has overdosed on
drugs or a combination of drugs and alcohol is putting the victim
into something called the recovery position.

In the DVD, a rescue worker demonstrates the recovery position:
rolling a victim onto his or her side, with the hand and arm closest
to the ground raised above the head. With the person's mouth down and
head turned, the air passage can remain clear in case of vomiting.

The next step is to call 911.

The DVD also addresses so-called "high risk" conditions for possible
overdose.

High-risk situations include mixing opiates with stimulants and
pouring alcohol into the mix, according to Lavoie. Other risk times
include periods when someone has abstained from drugs and returns to
drug use at the same dosage they used before.

Another high-risk situation is when people use drugs alone, according
to Lavoie.

Lavoie said the DVD also addresses symptoms of overdose, such as a
person not breathing and turning blue, snoring deeply, confusion,
vomiting and seizure.

"The first thing to do is put them in the recovery position, call
9-1-1 and stay with them," she said.

The DVD is being distributed by MaineGeneral in cooperation with
Discovery House, a methadone clinic in Waterville.

Police in Waterville and Augusta have been active within the task
force and with helping identify specific areas of each city where
overdoses have occurred.

Deputy Waterville Police Chief Charles Rumsey said he met with Lavoie
this week and received about 50 copies of "Save A Life" for
distribution across the city.

"We will be distributing them in cases when we come into contact with
people who might be using illicit drugs or may know somebody or be
concerned about somebody who is involved in that activity," Rumsey
said. "I've passed them out to members of our drug unit ... and the
South End Officer (Todd) Burbank. We put some of them in our booking
room and handed out the rest of them to our patrol units.

"The advantage is if we give out 50 or 100 of those things and
somewhere down the road, somebody watched one ... and somebody
overdoses on drugs and they know how to react, it could potentially
save a life. If six months down the road it saves a life, it was worth it."

Natalie Morse, director of the Prevention Center at MaineGeneral,
said distribution of "Save A Life" has been limited to 1,000 copies
within Kennebec and parts of Somerset counties, but could expand in
the coming months.

The DVD has been shared with health care officials in the Bangor and
Portland areas, as well as in Massachusetts, but so far the DVD has
not reached mass distribution levels outside of central Maine.

"It's a big problem in Maine," Morse said of the high rate of drug
overdoses. "It was MaineGeneral that helped write the script and
organize the task force in 2005 that produced it. All of the people
in the DVD volunteered their time and we had some donations from the
Discovery Foundation and MaineGeneral also made some donations."

Footage for the DVD was shot by Paul Kennedy, MaineGeneral's media
specialist. Editing was done at Time Warner offices in Augusta.