Registered Nurse Stacey Wickham delivers a PowerPoint presentation on how bailiffs treat drug overdoses in a courtroom.

Registered Nurse Stacey Wickham delivers a PowerPoint presentation on how bailiffs treat drug overdoses in a courtroom.

Here’s a scene that says a lot about Ohio’s opioid crisis: bailiffs being trained to use naloxone.

Court bailiffs from across Ohio recently attended a conference at the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center to learn how to administer naloxone, a medication used to treat opioid overdoses.

During the training, Grant Medical Center Trauma Program Outreach Coordinator and registered nurse Stacey Wickham demonstrated how it can save lives.

“If you come across a person who is unresponsive, if you have the naloxone available, you can administer it,” Wickham said. “It’s very easy. It’s just like a nasal spray or a nasal mist that you would use for allergies. You just squirt it into their nostrils.”

Ohio has one of the worst opioid problems in the country, with overdose deaths topping 4,854 in 2017, according to the Ohio Dept. of Health.

“With the drug situation the way it is, it sometimes takes more than one dose,” Wickham said. “But hopefully you can get a patient arousal with one dose and then get them to immediate care or wait until the EMT (emergency medical technician) providers arrive.”

Experts say it usually takes between 30 seconds and three minutes for naloxone, commonly known by its trade name Narcan, to take effect. It can remain in effect for 30-45 minutes.

Besides treating overdoses, nurses also showed bailiffs how to use a tourniquet if ever there would be a shooting inside a courtroom.

The program, called “Stop the Bleed,” received federal money after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

“It’s to teach lay people how to put on tourniquets and how to stop life-threatening bleeding,” Wickham said. “We hope to increase the lives saved during these types of incidents.”