Off-duty nurse saves overdose victim at Pennsylvania Walmart

Mike Argento | York (Pa.) Daily Record

Show Caption Hide Caption Watch: Naloxone 'saved my life' Emily Weichert, 35, of Spring Garden Township, walked into a press conference where state officials filled prescriptions for naloxone to demonstrate that now, across Pennsylvania, everyone can acquire naloxone at any pharmacy that carries it.

YORK, Pa. — Talysha Hughes was running errands with her 8-year-old daughter Thursday evening when she stopped at a Walmart to get a copy of a key made.

She wound up saving a life.

As she and her daughter approached the Springettsbury Township store's north entrance at about 10 p.m., she saw a man on the ground, unconscious. Some of the store staff had gathered.

Hughes, 27, who works at a local drug treatment facility as a detox nurse, suspected that it was an overdose. She identified herself as a nurse and asked one of the Walmart managers whether it was an overdose. The manager didn't know.

The man's pulse was weak. His respiration was slow and shallow. He was cold. The symptoms pointed to an opioid overdose.

It appeared he was dying.

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She asked one of the store employees to get some ice, and she packed it around the man's torso, ice being an effective treatment.

And she reached into her purse and took out a nasal-spray applicator of naloxone. She had obtained the overdose antidote at a pharmacy and carried it wherever she went.

She says everybody should keep naloxone handy. It's free, easy to use, and it could save a life, she said. You never know when you may encounter somebody in need of the life-saving drug.

"That's the world we live in," she said. "It's out in the open; it's in your face. This disease doesn't discriminate. It's everywhere."

She hadn't had the opportunity to put it to use, until Thursday night.

"I was hoping not to have to use it," the York woman said. "I don't go out looking to use it. But if something would have happened and I wasn't able to use it, that would have been terrible."

She administered it. She waited.

The man wasn't regaining consciousness.

She took out another naloxone applicator and administered it again.

By then, the police had arrived. Just as the officers approached, the man regained consciousness. He told the officers that he had injected two bags of heroin before going to Walmart and that he lost consciousness as he was entering the store, police reported.

What you should know about the drug Naloxone The drug known as Naloxone has been trending in the news lately due to the rising number of overdose-related deaths in America. Watch the video to learn everything you need to know about this drug and how it can potentially save a life.

The man was taken to the hospital. It's not known whether he has opted for further treatment for his addiction.

That she was there at that moment, and had naloxone in her purse, was "God's plan," Hughes said. "I wasn't going there to shop; I was just going in to use the machine to make a key. Timing is everything, I guess."

Her daughter watched as her mother saved the man's life. When it was over, Hughes said, she had a big smile on her face. She told her mother, "Mommy, you're a nurse. That's what I want to be when I grow up. I want to save people."

Hughes is a hero in her daughter's eyes.

"She thinks I'm a big shot now," Hughes said.