June 18, 2025

By Keith Benman
Contributing Writer

The Diocese of Ogdensburg has a new ministry that has already helped save a life and may help others turn their lives around.

Darcy Fargo, founder of the diocese’s opioid overdose prevention ministry, says it’s one more way the Church is putting its pro-life beliefs into practice.

“As Catholics we believe in the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death,” Fargo said. “And there’s nothing natural about an opioid overdose death.”

For more than a month, Fargo has been conducting opioid overdose prevention training in Catholic settings around the diocese. She is a familiar face to area Catholics, as she is also the director of communications for the diocese and editor of the North Country Catholic. The training teaches people how to administer naloxone – better known by its brand name, Narcan.

Naloxone can revive someone whose respiratory system has shut down due to an opioid overdose. So far, 135 people have attended training sessions put on by the diocese’s new ministry.

During the training, use of naloxone nasal spray pumps is demonstrated. Once the session is done, attendees are given the chance to enroll as naloxone-trained opioid overdose responders. More than 120 kits containing the naloxone spray pumps have been handed out free.

An individual who attended one of the trainings later reported using naloxone obtained through the diocese to reverse an overdose suffered by an immediate family member.

“We’ve only been offering this training for a little over a month, and it’s already helped save a life,” Fargo said.

“To me, learning to administer naloxone is like learning to perform CPR – most of us will never use it, but when you run into a situation where it’s needed, it can save lives.”

The training also features a question-and-answer session.

“I think the discussions during that portion of the training have been, in some cases, just as valuable as the training,” Fargo said. “It’s an opportunity for people to express any reservations they have and to talk about addiction and harm reduction.”

Fargo realizes there is still skepticism in society about the use of naloxone, as many addicts rescued by it go back to using drugs despite having been at the edge of death.

One of those people spoke to about 15 concerned Catholics and others at one of the recent training sessions, which was held at the St. Mary’s Thrift Store, in Canton.

Randy, age 37, overdosed after taking drugs at home a few years ago. Because an overdose can occur up to three hours after ingestion of opioids, he made his way to a nearby Dollar General Store before his breathing stopped, and he collapsed. When he came to, the paramedic told him they had administered Narcan. Randy knew it had saved his life, but he still went back to using drugs later that day.

But he believes he also went through what he describes as a “religious or spiritual experience” while laying at the edge of death on the floor of the Dollar General that day. That experience eventually led him to seek treatment.

“What I found was that alcohol and drugs were not my problem. I was my problem,” Randy said. “My thinking, my thoughts were my problem.”

He believes those thoughts had their origin in what he describes as a “rough childhood.”

“I grew up thinking I was not worthy of anything... of life, of chances, at being anybody in life,” he said. “I thought I was just meant to grow up to suffer and toil away in the forever realm of eternal damnation, honestly.”

Randy had been in treatment several times before, but this time it worked. He turned his life around. He credits that turnaround to a more spiritual outlook on life. And he gives credit to all the people who have extended a helping hand throughout his recovery from drug addiction.

“As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another,” he said quoting the Book of Proverbs.

Fargo is hoping testimony like Randy’s can change people’s minds and encourage as many as possible to get opioid overdose prevention training. More training could have helped prevent some of the more than 48,000 opioid overdose deaths that occurred in the United States last year.

Fargo reminded listeners at the St. Mary’s Thrift Store not all those suffering overdoses are addicts. In local prisons, guards and staff have been exposed to synthetic opioids, including fentanyl. Fentanyl is the most prevalent opioid sold illegally on the streets today. And other drugs are often laced with fentanyl, including marijuana.

Fargo also tells of her sister’s experience as a nurse. Her sister has administered naloxone to eight different people. Three of them she describes as “little old ladies” who simply overdosed on their prescriptions.

“People can’t say: ‘I’m not hanging out with addicts. I’m not going to see someone overdose,’” Fargo said.

“People are exposed unintentionally. People use medications incorrectly. And it can take a while for an overdose to start, so someone could use opioids, show up at a food pantry and go into an overdose there.”

In the training sessions it’s emphasized that New York public health law protects people administering naloxone from liability. And there are additional protections for those calling for emergency medical aid for drug overdoses under New York’s 911 Good Samaritan Law. New York law also requires insurers to cover naloxone kits sold at drug stores with at most only a small co-pay.