Pharmacist, employee save two men who overdosed outside store

ATLANTA — A local pharmacist and one of his employees are credited with saving the life of man who overdosed outside their store.

Pharmacist Ira Katz and assistant Desiree Cross work at the Little Five Points Pharmacy, one of the few family pharmacies left in Atlanta.

A couple of weeks ago, someone ran to the door calling for help. A man was nodded out in his car.

“Knocked on the window. He was passed out ... knocked on the window, no response,” Katz said.

“Felt for his pulse, very faint pulse. He was not breathing.”

He called on Cross to bring out Narcan, a nasal spray that can reverse a heroin or opioid drug overdose.

Katz gave the man two shots of the spray and pulled him from the car.

“Desiree and I put him on the ground, and I began CPR,” Katz said.

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Minutes later paramedics arrived.

“Just as they pulled up, he started to breathe and everyone cheered, ‘Hey, we got him back, we got him back.’ Everyone was, like, applauding. It was an amazing moment,” Katz said.

"If you hadn't found him and you had not administered the Narcan, there's a good likelihood he would have died?" Channel 2's Tom Regan asked Cross.

“He would have died,” she responded.

Just a few days after that overdose, the pharmacist's assistant responded to another overdose in the shopping center parking lot.

“I just automatically grabbed the Narcan and ran out,” she said.

She helped revive him with Narcan and CPR. Katz says both men are very fortunate to be alive.

“Thank God he was in the parking lot of a pharmacy,” Cross said. “I think Narcan should be in everyone's first-aid kit and medicine cabinet."

Katz says the parents of the first overdose victim stopped in to thank him.

“Offered to pay for my service. I didn't expect any payment. I was just doing my job,” he said.

Cox Media Group