UNDERSTANDING AND COMPASSION –

Aug. 16, 2024 – Daniel Grant, 46, overdosed on fentanyl in 2020.

He passed out just before heading into work. His boss found him with the straw he used to snort what he thought was pure oxycodone still in his hand 45 minutes after snorting the pill. Paramedics gave him an IV of naloxone — an overdose reversal agent — twice, but it didn’t keep his heart from stopping three times.

They gave him another dose.

“I could just hear, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see, I don’t remember smelling anything, I tried to speak and I couldn’t, and my arm — where I had the IV — was on fire,” Grant said. “Things start coming clear, then I blink my eyes and I’m seeing fuzzy stuff.”

An employee in goggles, blue scrubs and a mask stopped pumping Grant’s chest as he came back to life.

“I’m waking up to this alien staring back,” Grant said. “All I heard her say was ‘Oh, there you are. Glad you’re back.’”

Grant is one man in recovery among hundreds in Aiken County diagnosed with opioid addiction.

He’s also one of the lucky ones as one person dies from a drug overdose in Aiken County every week, and almost two on average in 2023.

More than 251 people have died from a drug overdose every day nationally since 2020.

CONTINUE@PostAndCourier