Opioid overdoses are on the rise in New York, according to the state Department of Health, and health professionals are working hard to offer interventions, services and medications to mitigate unintentional deaths from fentanyl. 

Monica Salvage works on the front-line of overdoses, addictions and the stigmas surrounding the disease at the Cayuga County Health Department. As the Healing Cayuga project manager, she said she sees overdoses effect young teens, and it's a growing cause of concern. 

“Teens overdose as young as like 11 or 12 years old," she said.

Despite the statistics of younger victims and a surge in education, Salvage said naivety remains.

“When we're engaging people they say, 'Oh, I don't know those kinds of people. Oh, I don't need that because, you know, I don't, you know, I'm not in those circles.' But then when you start talking about where overdoses can happen and that it could happen in a parking lot, or in the park, or at an event, that it's really important those first few minutes to administer Narcan before first responders arrive and all that. Sometimes it changes people's minds," she said.

Salvage said the amount of deadly fentanyl police are getting off the streets is also changing people's minds. Recently, Syracuse police seized 20,000 envelopes of fentanyl in a traffic stop. Auburn police with the Finger Lakes Drug Task Force also confiscated more than double that amount.

“There was a combined effort of all of our drug enforcement agencies. They seized 70,000 of those blue fake fentanyl pills, which was huge. However, it means that it's here now. And the real danger with those pills is that it can be, you know, pure fentanyl. It can't be like any of those pills could be deadly. And what makes it so dangerous is also that they're made to look like prescription drugs," Salvage said. 

Naloxone is the tool she and the state Department of Health say they hand out for free to prevent opioid deaths. Salvage said being the next witness to help save a life is only a Naloxone request away.

“We asked for the motivation of people, why do they request Narcan from our online portal and over 40% actually mentioned that they've seen or witnessed an overdose before? So that was really shocking for us to see," she said.

Salvage said using Naloxone won't hurt someone if they're passed out for other reasons, but if it's an opioid overdose, it gives them a chance at surviving.

“Once we started implementing our interventions we've seen a 22% decrease in fatalities, which is huge when you think about how nationally overdose deaths have risen by 30%. And now we have witnesses using as much Narcan as first responders," she said.