On Monday, May 15, over 20 staff members of Appomattox County Public Schools met at the county’s high school on National Fentanyl Awareness Day for a training session, learning how to revive someone who has overdosed from opioid drugs.

Curtis Jones, who works as a prevention specialist at Horizon Behavioral Health and as State Opioid Response Grant Coordinator, led the session titled “REVIVE! Opioid Overdose and Naloxone Education (OONE) program for the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Jones emphasized the importance of overdose treatment in light on the ongoing struggle against opioid addiction, which Jones said has been defined as an “epidemic” since 2015.

“In 2022, there were well over 2,000 opioid overdose deaths in Virginia, and nearly 80 percent of those were due to fentanyl,” he said. “So, fentanyl is on the rise in creating all these opioid deaths that are continuing to plague the communities.”

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