By Spencer Sterritt

Safe injection site sees third overdose in a week

Jan 17, 2017 | 2:33 PM

NANAIMO — For the third time in a week, staff at Nanaimo’s pop-up drug consumption site say their service has saved a life.

Paramedics arrived at Onsite in the City Hall parking lot at approximately 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to treat a man who had overdosed.

Jeremy Kalicum, who volunteers at Onsite, said though the man is recovering, the incident could have had a much darker outcome.

“He was saying they were this close to going back home and using…they would have gone back home, overdosed, been hesitant to call the paramedics and this man would have quite possibly died. I just thank God we had the supplies here and we had this facility here to essentially save this man’s life,” he said.

Kalicum said their volunteer on hand, who is a retired licensed practical nurse, gave the man rescue breaths and administered two naloxone shots while they waited for paramedics to arrive.

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This was the third overdose in a week, according to Kalicum. He said there seems to be a “bad batch” of likely heroin making the rounds in the area.

The Onsite pop-up consumption location is in City Hall’s parking lot. It was first established on Dec. 26 by Nanaimo Coun. Gord Fuller and a group of volunteers to curb overdose deaths in Nanaimo.

Island Health says a sanctioned overdose-prevention site is set to open by the end of January, at which time it’s expected the pop-up Onsite facility will close.

Kalicum said the three overdoses are proof their services are needed in the area.

“The proof is in the pudding, we could save three lives.”