Warm handoff program for overdose victims: ‘If you can just trust me enough …’

• Keira McGuire
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  Keira McGuire is a health reporter and multimedia producer for WITF. She hosts and produces Transforming Health television programs as well as other shows and documentaries for WITF’s Original Productions. McGuire produced the Emmy Award winning series HealthSmart for the last ten years. Keira previously worked at WBFF in Baltimore and WMDT in Salisbury as a reporter and anchor. She’s a graduate of Towson University.

Today, more Pennsylvanians die from opioid overdoses than in car accidents.

Kristin Varner is the director of training and advocacy for the RASE Project. Varner, along with every other person who works for the project, is in long-term recovery. She’s hoping its warm handoff program will begin to make a difference in the community.

Here’s how it works: Every time someone is revived by naloxone and taken to the hospital, a representative from the RASE Project is called. That person will meet the overdose victim at the hospital and try to assist them in getting into treatment.

Watch Varner talk about what RASE representatives say when they meet with someone who has overdosed: