Medical students in Fort Worth are learning lifesaving skills – from a North Texas mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose. She’s in the classroom, training these future doctors on how to use drugs like Narcan and now they’re embarking on a new project that could save even more lives.
Medical students in Fort Worth are learning life-saving skills from a North Texas mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose.
She's in the classroom, training these future doctors on how to use drugs like Narcan and now they're embarking on a new project that could save even more lives.
Callie Crow starts off her training by giving students at TCU's Burnet School of Medicine their own box of Narcan or naloxone.
It's the nasal spray that can rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose and it's a medication that could have saved her son's life.
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"Narcan was actually on scene of the event and for whatever reason, it was not used resulting in death for my son," Callie Crow, a former parademic.
Drew Crow had just turned 27 when he overdosed back in 2020.
In the three and half years since Crow has made it her mission through her non-profit Drew's 27 Chains to teach as many people as she can on when and how to use naloxone.
"It's very simple. You can't hurt someone. You can give multiple times. It doesn't even have to be a confirmed opioid overdose. You may save someone's life. There are so many things people really don't understand and that hesitancy, because they don't want to hurt them, can cause someone to die," said Crow.
She said she knows of 63 lives that have been saved by the Narcan doses she's handed out during these trainings.
She also believes the true number is higher.
That's where first-year medical student Angel Sheu and TCU's Dr. Ric Bonnell step in.
"We thought of the QR codes! We thought of putting them right on the packets so that whenever somebody is using them and ripping them apart, they see the QR code and they have it right in their hands. They can get to it whenever the situation is appropriate," said Sheu.
The QR codes will lead the user to a form they can fill out, describing the use of the Narcan dose and the situation.
"It will tell us not just how many lives were saved, but again, did it take more than one dose? Was the training sufficient?," said Dr. Bonnell.
"We really hope that this will help us be able to better train medical professionals and first responders in the future," he added.
The QR codes are in print production.
Crow said she hopes the QR project leads to better opioid overdose training and ultimately, more lives saved, adding to Drew's growing legacy.
"People like to focus on life having purpose but in Drew's case, it's very much his death having great purpose and that's hard to say sometimes," said Crow.
"A lot of people ask me, 'How do you talk about this every day? It must be horrible,' and I can't do anything but smile when I talk about him cause I am so proud of what he has done and he would be very proud," she said.
The non-profit offers training to schools and businesses, with free boxes of Narcan for training participants.
