Hanover Park officers recognized for preventing heroin death

Fresh off their training, two Hanover Park police officers were put to the test.

The pair found a 29-year-old man who had stopped breathing on the 5700 block of Barr Court the night of March 26. They knew the unconscious man had taken an overdose of heroin.

In a race against the clock, officer Tim McNulty delivered two doses of naloxone via a nasal spray. Officer Tim Allen administered CPR until paramedics arrived.

Their teamwork and quick thinking revived the man just a couple of days after Allen and McNulty learned how to use a drug that can reverse an opiate overdose, police say.

"Job well done," Mayor Rodney Craig said before a gathering honoring the cops this week.

Faced with a record 46 deaths from heroin last year, DuPage County officials have launched a program to train and distribute naloxone, also called Narcan, to more than 1,200 officers, including Hanover Park's ranks.

The program has blocked overdoses twice. Less than a week before the Hanover Park case, a DuPage County sheriff's deputy delivered Narcan to a 32-year-old woman overdosing on heroin near Villa Park.

Although paramedics have long carried the drug, police are now equipped with a kit containing a device that sprays Narcan into each nostril.

"It's out there in the patrol force every day," Police Chief David Webb said. "We'll be saving some lives."

A humble Allen said they were simply doing their jobs.

"Any other officer in our shoes would do the exact same thing," he said.