A Fairfax High School student had to be hospitalized after a possible overdose inside the school on Monday.
Emergency crews rushed to the scene “for a male student overdosed on fentanyl,” according to 911 dispatches obtained by NBC Washington.
“This is serious. … There’s no turning back from this,” Chandra Ozkan, a mother of three, told NBC during a meeting about opioid risk awareness at Fairfax High School on Monday. The meeting had been planned before the emergency took place.
She joined hundreds of other parents at the event hosted by Fairfax County Public Schools and the Fairfax County Police Department.
Ozkan said she’s already talking to her sons about the dangers of opioids and fentanyl.
“Only a small, small teeny dose, or exposure to it, is going to ruin your life,” she said.
“We have a police department that has a full-time opioid overdose squad,” Police Chief Kevin Davis said.
Superintendent Michelle Reid said it was “critical” to raise awareness about the dangers of the drugs because the school system “can’t go a week without an issue around this topic in our young people.”
Reid says conversations with the community about opioids will continue in April. Specific dates have not yet been announced on the FCPS event calendar.
Fairfax isn’t the only Northern Virginia district grappling with the opioid epidemic. Arlington parents met Monday at Thomas Jefferson Middle School for an event organized by the PTA about it.
Some there called for students to be allowed to carry naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose, in Arlington Public Schools, WUSA9 reported.
According to the Virginia Department of Health, you need a prescription for naloxone. Individuals authorized to administer naloxone include school nurses, school board officials, or those contracted by a school board to provide health services, according to a State Health Commissioner’s standing order issued in February.
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