PORTLAND Hours. (KPTV) – Last year, Portland First Responders handled an average of 19 overdose calls each day.

Those calls put a huge strain on the city’s emergency response resources; Firefighters were prevented from being prepared for a real fire.

To address this problem, Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) started a new program earlier this year with the primary mission of responding to overdoses.

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CHAT, or Community Health Assessment and Treatment, focuses on providing immediate, life-saving care in the field for people who have overdosed on opioids.

“We’re going to an unconscious person,” PF&R spokesman Rick Graves said as our team walked alongside CHAT responders. “Abnormal breathing. I can’t tell right now if it’s on a sidewalk, but we’re very close.”

The Overdose Response Unit is responding to reports of a man lying on the sidewalk, unresponsive, lights flashing while driving. The team has a supply of the overdose reversal drug, Narcan, just for these cases.

“If they need to have their opioids reversed, we give them Narcan and then go from there,” said Justin DeJesus, one of the paramedics assigned to the facility. “Then after they wake up, we see what they want to do. Sometimes they go away. Sometimes they are interested in the medication-assisted program we offer.”

That medication-assisted treatment program is also known as opioid use disorder medication or a mood program. It is one of the team’s most powerful tools to end the opioid epidemic.

As a paramedic, Justin can administer Suboxone to someone immediately after an overdose reversal. The drug combines Narcan with a drug called buprenorphine, which helps treat opioid withdrawal symptoms.

“When someone is on buprenorphine, they can still use, but they won’t get as high,” said Michelle La Vina, the nursing manager at PF&R. “They will feel better and be better able to make decisions for themselves so they can participate in treatment over time.”

“We saved $9 million in the health care system,” said Deputy Chief Stephanie Sullvan. “We had about 68 percent of the people we responded to who had overdosed on opiates, we were able to treat them in the field and not send them to the emergency department.”

Last year, Portland First Responders handled an average of 19 overdose calls each day.

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Back on the street with CHAT, fellow paramedic Tyler Greenfield gives the unresponsive man a dose of Narcan. It works almost instantly.

But instead of being grateful to the first responders for saving his life, the man became combative, cursing and shouting at the crew. He had overdosed just the night before and still had his hospital bracelet.

Once the man calmed down a bit, Greenfield asked if he would be interested in medication-assisted treatment, but the man declined. After spending some time screaming that she wanted to die, the crew began the process of involuntarily hospitalizing her for 72 hours.

But before the police arrived, he grabbed his bag and walked back into the streets of Portland.

CHAT is a team on the streets, with all the tools for recovery, but dealing with a population caught in its own cycle of addiction.

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