Kustoff visits Aspell Recovery Center

U.S. Congressman David Kustoff, who represents Tennessee’s Eighth District in the House of Representatives, was in Jackson this week and made a stop at Aspell Recovery Center to get a look at their upgraded facilities.

Aspell Executive Director Richard Barber, Kustoff and State Senator Ed Jackson all discussed the need for Aspell and other places like it in rural West Tennessee as addiction to opioids and other substances continues to be at epidemic levels nationally.

Kustoff also mentioned a relatively new aspect to the drug problem in the region, drugs laced with fentanyl as it comes across the border from Mexico.

It takes miniscule amounts of the substance to cause someone to die from an overdose, and Kustoff even told a story about when fentanyl nearly killed a first responder recently.

“I was told a story of a person who’d overdosed, and 9-1-1 had been called,” Kustoff said. “The victim had fentanyl on their person, and when the person had been worked on and was loaded into the ambulance, the EMS person who was working on them in the ambulance came into contact with the fentanyl and began to show signs of exposure and was near death.

“The ambulance driver had to pull over and jump out and give the other staffer a dose of NARCAN to keep them from dying.”

Barber expressed gratitude to Kustoff for his continued support of the center since he’s been representing the region in Washington D.C.

“Congressman Kustoff and Senator Jackson and everyone else around here does so much to support us, and we can’t thank them enough,” Barber said. “I know our residents and graduates are appreciative as well because they’ve helped them dig themselves out of a hole they found themselves in.”

This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Kustoff visits Aspell Recovery Center