NEW YORK – There were some terrifying moments inside a Westchester County high school when a teenage student suddenly collapsed in the middle of an overdose after smoking a weed vaporizer that may have been laced with fentanyl .
The big scare happened inside New Rochelle High School earlier in the week after a student tried to get high.
The student “had a vape thinking it was marijuana. He suddenly became very disoriented, he didn’t feel well,” said New Rochelle Schools Superintendent Jonathan Raymond.
The student went to see the school nurses, who are trained to detect and treat possible opioid overdoses. They quickly administered Narcan to help the student, who was later hospitalized. The individual was released on Monday evening and returned to school later in the week.
School nurse Diane Vetrano was honored at a parenting seminar Tuesday night for her and her team’s efforts in saving the teenager’s life. State educators are now sharing the experience, as the superintendent is responding to calls from other schools about training district nurses in the use of Narcan, which schools have had since 2016.
“We’ve never had to use it. This was our first crash, but it’s really important,” said Raymond.
The school administrator is also issuing a warning about vape cartridges that could be laced with potentially deadly fentanyl.
“To get the message across to our young people: You can’t try something on the street. It can be deadly,” said Raymond.
In New York, college campuses must have Narcan on hand. Since 2014, the Westchester County Health Department has offered training on how to administer the potentially life-saving overdose drug.
But it has been a slow process to get legal weed off the ground, leaving dozens of cannabis growers (many upstate and in the Hudson Valley) in limbo. They produced tons and tons of products, but had nowhere to sell them, until now.
