Students at LaRue County High School received a unique drug prevention education session yesterday, a simulated overdose based on the true story of a Hardin County teen who passed away after a fentanyl overdose.

It's a real story told by real EMS workers and Baptist health.

Hardin's as it's making a real impact.

In my opinion, the number one group to work with prevention.

As for high school students.

Upon arrival in the emergency department.

Brant is still unresponsive and CPR is still being performed.

It was a simulation of a local teenager local to Hardin County who passed when he was 18 after taking a pill at a friend's house.

We came in and we did a simulation from the home scene through the emergency department to the ICU and ultimately to the morgue.

After the overdose simulation, we had a panel in which we asked questions of community partners that included law enforcement at Lincoln Trail District Health Department and then nurses from Baptist Health Hardin.

There's no safeguards when it's manufactured.

We don't know what's in it.

It could be anything.

It's important for us because we want kids to know that we carry Narcan just like the EMTs, just like fire every other first responder.

It is important, especially in this, when it's a life or death situation.

We are not coming to arrest people.

We are coming to save a life.

And it is very important that the kids understand they're not going to get in trouble for trying to help somebody.

We had a young lady that overdosed on, I believe it was methamphetamine.

So four years ago they drove around with her body in the car for 12 hours or more because they don't want to get in trouble.

And had they called initially.

Who's to say we couldn't have saved her?

So we're trying to prevent those types of things from happening again, and especially with these kids.

We don't see a lot of fentanyl or a lot of opiate addiction in our school kids.

But you never know what you're going to get.

And if you were taking something that someone gave you that you think maybe a Xanax, you think it may be something in the package of stuff and they press pills now to make it look like something it's not.

So they can be legally transported.

So you just never know what you're going to get a hold of.

We want the kids to know that we are just as much here to help as we are to enforce.

And in these instances, the help over takes the enforcement part.

What we want.

And that's the message we want to get out to the kids that we're here to help.

We had no idea he was struggling with substance abuse.

We actually didn't find out until after he had passed away.

We had a bunch of this after the panel.

We then showed a video testimonial of his sister going through what they went through as a family.

And then the video hit close to home because it's here in Kentucky in like we go against the drawn out football games and we probably have seen that kid and that kid won't come back.

I learned that you can carry Narcan in this being hit so close to home that we see people doing drugs and we know people who are we can administer Narcan and maybe save someone's life.

All right.

So we hope that with this simulation, we kind of get that hook to kind of get their attention and then to have the panel up there to answer the questions and give them the education that they need on what is Narcan and where can they get Narcan?

How do they administer it?

Why is this a problem in our community?

We kind of have that hook and then we're able to educate them and then for them to see that this is happening locally and not it's not just something that's happening in bigger cities in Louisville or Lexington, it's happening in Hardin County and Lorain County and Mead County, All of the counties.

Due to the intense nature of the simulation, students are allowed to speak to school counselors before returning to class.

Baptist Health Hardin has also taken this presentation to schools in Hardin and Meade counties.