A candlelight vigil was held at the Supervised Consumption Services site in Lethbridge Friday, with those in attendance taking a moment to grieve and share their thoughts on a chalkboard memory wall.
It was also a moment for people to share their stories with those around them.
“To be clean and off the drugs now, it feels good, and I feel good,” Tiffany Genereaux said. “But I wanted to come to remind everybody of the people we lost, because we tend to forget them.”
It was all part of International Overdose Awareness Day, commemorated every August 31.
ARCHES staff hosted the special event to commemorate the day.
In Lethbridge alone, 17 deaths related to apparent accidental fentanyl overdoses were reported from January to June of this year, compared to 16 in all of 2017.
Naloxone training was available at the event, helping people learn how to administer the drug and educating them on best practices.
“One of the things that’s key is providing breaths,” Chenger noted. “Taking a downer or an opioid represses a person’s breathing and providing the breaths is super important.”
More than 450 overdoses were reversed at the Supervised Consumption Services site with nearly 54,000 visits logged since it’s opening in February of this year.
Organizers hope events like International Overdose Awareness Day will continue to raise awareness and highlight the public health crisis.
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