This retired firefighter is spending his time — and his savings — rescuing overdose victims.
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00:00I went out and bought 800 individual nasal Narcan sprays and I have responded to emergency
00:07scenes in South Florida and brought 11 people back to life.
00:28My name is Luis Garcia.
00:31About a year and a half ago I started a one-man project to save lives in the opioid pandemic.
00:38I've never been impacted by the disease of addiction.
00:40Nobody I know or love is battling substance use disorder.
00:44I don't make any money off this.
00:45This is just a matter of being a good human being and helping other human beings.
00:50Every life is worth saving.
00:52Come in a box of two, $37.50 to save a human life.
01:10There will be a click, keep it in the one, two seconds, then pull it out.
01:14During my career, I believe I've gone to over 3,000 overdoses.
01:36The one medication that any paramedic or ER can give somebody in a life or death emergency
01:43that is the safest emergency drug is Narcan.
01:47When it became available over the counter essentially for layperson usage, I realized
01:52that we could change the tide of deaths in the opioid crisis.
02:07You drive right by here, there's nice condominiums, there's beautiful homes, people are living
02:12their life and they don't realize a block over, someone's overdosing.
02:16Two blocks away, somebody's selling their body for opioids.
02:21So many people assume that the people who are overdosing are junkies.
02:26More often than not, they're middle class people, they're people who work, they're quote
02:30unquote good people.
02:32They become addicted to prescription pain medicines and then they lose insurance so
02:39they turn to street heroin.
02:41But they're not junkies or homeless, they're good people.
03:00In Florida, the overdose deaths have gone down dramatically and because more people
03:06are carrying Narcan, fewer people are dying.
03:09I've also been very impressed by the kindness of strangers on GoFundMe.
03:14Almost 700 people have donated anything from $5 to $2,000 to save lives and it's inspired
03:21me to believe that there are still good people besides myself out there.
03:25I will actually be able to go all over the USA and do what I'm doing now.
03:29I am hopeful that I will save many more lives but I also know that the reality is that attitudes
03:35have a long way to go.