Troy police and firefighter/paramedics will join forces with a substance abuse professional to attempt to intervene with those who have overdosed on opiates, particularly heroin.

“We’re all committed to trying this,” Patrick Titterington, Troy service and safety director, said July 5 as the Quick Response Team (QRT) pilot project with the Miami County Recovery Council was outlined before the city council.

The team will be made up of a city police officer, firefighter/paramedic, and a Recovery Council addiction treatment specialist and, if possible, a peer support specialist from the faith based community.

Ideally, the firefighter/paramedic and police officer that responded to the overdose call would be involved in the team response, Titterington said.

The QRT would work to meet with those who have overdosed within 72 hours of the incident to see if they would be willing and ready to enter into treatment and counseling in an attempt to end the addiction.

The city has agreed to a minimum of six hours of project participation a week. How the city employees would be paid is being worked out along with a memorandum of understanding with the recovery council.

The city also would team with the recovery council to work with the state on funding to offset operating costs and to submit grants for the program. Statistics for the project will be gathered on a regular basis to help determine if the effort should continue beyond the pilot year and to also support funding requests, Titterington said.

The council later in the meeting approved unanimously a resolution supporting that team.

Council also heard a presentation from Steve Justice, a local lawyer working with the Miami County Heroin Coalition.

The county, Justice said, “is experiencing an unprecedented issue with heroin addiction and overdoses.” The county each month is seeing around 50 people overdosing and across the state 25 people a day die of heroin overdoses, he said.

The coalition that began meeting in January includes representatives of the faith-based community, law enforcement, the courts, social services along with mental health/behavioral health professionals and addiction experts.

“This is such a problem it is going to take a community working together to address it,” Justice said.

In addition to the QRT, the coalition has worked to produce a brochure of resources for mental health, addictions treatment and counseling for Miami and surrounding counties and officers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the sheriff’s office have undergone training on administering Narcan to those who have overdosed. 

The group also has developed a chart showing a complete system of care for the addicted from intake through the end of treatment. The chart has helped identify needs in treatment services. For example, there is no detox facility for an addict in the county beyond the county jail, Justice said.

In the resolution of support, the council says it recognizes “that drug overdoses related to opiate abuse exist in the City of Troy, and they further recognize the burden and hardship of such abuse on Troy citizens and the Troy Community, the loss of life, the disruption to families and neighborhoods, the physical and emotional afflictions that result from such abuse, and the community resources that are expended in the current abuse treatment methods.”