Altru Health System and UND have partnered to warn the community about the dangers of fentanyl and other opioids following several recent overdoses and warnings from police.
The video features Dr. Mark Christenson, medical director of UND Student Health Services, and Dr. Colleen Swank, chief medical executive at Altru.
Similar to recent police warnings, the video warns of the danger, unpredictability and increasing potency of street drugs, including fentanyl.
Bailey Henke, 18, died in Grand Forks Jan. 3 after overdosing on fentanyl citrate. Evan Poitra, 19, died last July in Grand Forks, also related to that drug case, in which three other Grand Forks residents were also injured the past year after overdosing on heroin, fentanyl citrate or both.
The case is being prosecuted in federal court.
ADVERTISEMENT
In an unrelated case, Jessika Erickson, 26, died in East Grand Forks after chewing on a fentanyl patch.
"There's no safe amount or dosage, and there's no way to know what you're getting when you smoke, inject or inhale it," Christenson said of fentanyl in the video.
Though police have already warned about the dangers of these drugs, representatives of UND, Altru and other organizations, including law enforcement, felt it was important for the message to also come from medical professionals as well, said Laurie Betting, associate vice president for health and wellness at UND.
"We see first hand in our emergency department the effects of these overdoses," Swank said. "My fear is that there are going to be people who are naive," or regular drug users who don't know the true increasing potency and danger of these drugs, she said.
Statistics on how many overdose cases Altru has faced were unavailable.
Swank also said people should not rely on revival antidotes that emergency responders can use, such as Narcan, to undo opiate overdoses, because they don't always work depending on the level of overdose.
The UND and Altru video, which was posted Tuesday, has been shared through social media by many community entities, Betting said.
On the Web: To see the UND and Altru video, visit https://youtu.be/9JQeI38RoJM .
