It was January and a family friend staying with them overnight began making a gurgling, snoring noise. Her son tried unsuccessfully to wake the friend, then realized he was overdosing.
"It was the most frightening experience in my life," said the nurse, who has spent much of her career in the emergency room and school nurse's office in Red Clay Consolidated School District.
Russo-Avena, however, had naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug that has saved the lives of thousands of Delawareans, including her house guest that night in January. After administering two doses of naloxone, more commonly known by the brand name Narcan, through the intranasal spray, he came to and survived.
Paramedics who arrived nearly 25 minutes later to their New Castle County home told her that was their fourth or fifth overdose that night.
The signing of Senate Bill 48 by Gov. John Carney on Thursday in Dover allows anyone to walk into a participating Delaware pharmacy and purchase naloxone from a pharmacist so the overdose antidote can be kept bedside, as Russo-Avena's was, or in a first-aid kit.
