09-04-2025
Emily's Hope naloxone boxes installed at Sanford
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — There are now more places where you can pick up a lifesaving tool for free.
Naloxone is a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose.
If you walk through the main doors of Sanford hospital or its emergency room in Sioux Falls, you'll see dispenser boxes stocked with free naloxone kits.
'Anyone and everyone is able to come and get it. It will be in public spaces that are accessible 24/7,' Sanford Integrated Health Therapist Kayler Ridl said.
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The kits include a couple doses and instructions on how to use them.
'And this is a safety tool that we really want everyone to carry. You never know when you could come across someone overdosing. It's happened in public restrooms, it's happened in traffic,' Emily's Hope Founder Angela Kennecke said.
Emily's Hope provides the naloxone kits.
With two distribution boxes now at Sanford, Emily's Hope has 10 naloxone dispensers in South Dakota.
'We have distributed some 6,400 doses since we started about a year ago, those are mostly in Sioux Falls,' Kennecke said.
Now, free naloxone is reaching even more people.
'We are very forward facing with individuals who are abusing substances, using substances that are at high risk of overdose, so we're excited to work with Emily's Hope and ideally, increase accessibility to this product and save some lives,' Ridl said.
Kennecke says Sanford paid for the two dispenser boxes.
If your business or organization is interested having an Emily's Hope box, click here.
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