December 17, 2023 • 15 mins
Original Air Date: December 17, 2023
Ryan Sager is a 27 year old social worker in Philly. He’s also known as the Narcan Batman. In his free time, he patrols the Kensington section of Philly, looking to help those in danger of overdosing.
Ryan Sager is a 27 year old social worker in Philly. He’s also known as the Narcan Batman. In his free time, he patrols the Kensington section of Philly, looking to help those in danger of overdosing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,Conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to someone who has been dubbedthe Narcan Fatman. Ryan Sagar, is
(00:22):
a saint. Ryan Sager goes toone of the roughest, most painful areas
of Philadelphia where there are it's likean open air market for drug abuse.
It's just insanely open. It's noteven an open secret, it's just open.
(00:44):
It's the Kensington section of Philadelphia,and he saves lives. He drives
around and looks for people who lookslike look like they're overdosing. Ryan,
how did you even come up withthis idea? How long have you been
doing this? I've been doing thisfor about four years now, I I
(01:07):
you know, four years ago myI started a job in Kensington and uh,
about two weeks into my uh uhmy work, here I was dropping
a I was dropping a resident offtoo to the hospital as this was COVID,
(01:27):
so I was going right to thethe emergency room door. So I
was in that emergency room bay andsomebody, you know, uh drove in.
You know, like a bat outof hell. And they dropped their
friend, uh in the emergency roomparking lot and I just happened to have
narcn on me and I narc andthem and and by the time the uh
(01:52):
the doctors or the emergency room staffcame out to get him, he was,
you know, starting to sheet excuseme, she was, uh,
you know, starting to come backfrom it. And uh. After that,
I just, you know, duringmy my free time, I would
(02:12):
go out and look for people becausewe have nar can arkans of uh phenomenal
substance. It's it literally it doesthe life saving. I you know,
I don't like to think of myselfas being the person that's saving the life.
It's it's dar can, you know. But just you know, you
(02:34):
need to have the willingness to todo it, to stop and and check
on people and make sure that they'rebreathing. So so, how much of
your time is taken up with this? I mean you already have a full
time job. What what are youin the real world, well, the
real world, both the real world. I'm a social worker in Kensington.
(02:55):
I work with predominantly veteran populations,previously homeless and people with mental health and
substance abuse issues. So how muchof your time, like how much a
week? Or are you doing this? I would say, you know,
not more than you know, afew hours a week. You know during
(03:20):
the during the summer, it's it'safter work, and you know, during
the winter months when it's dark,when I get out of work, it's
usually you know, on my lunchbreak, you know, fifteen minutes here,
thirty minutes there. How many livesdo you think you've saved? So
(03:44):
with with Narcan, I've saved fourpeople and then completely unrelated, not narcan
related, incident happened at a comedyshow a couple of months ago, and
I perform CPR for about twenty minutesbefore the paramedics got there, So I
count that one. Yes, ofcourse, a life is a life.
(04:09):
There's controversy about nar CAN because thereare some people who say that by promoting
nar CAN, you are promoting drugabuse, You are condoning drug abuse.
What do you say to these people? Yeah? Absolutely, a common criticism
of of narcan and the work thatI do for me. I come from
(04:33):
a harm reduction standpoint, so youknow, there's I'm not smart enough to
you know, fix the underlying,the underlaying problem. All I can do
is try to try to save liveswhere I can. You know, so
(04:57):
things things that that make drug usesafer. It's kind of a you know,
it's a hard thing to grasp,but if you make the drug use
safer, you give people more opportunitiesto recover eventually, you know, and
some people may never recover, buteverybody gets that chance, you know,
(05:18):
So that that's that's where I'm comingfrom. You ever, do follow up
with people that you have come incontact with to try to get them that
help, because I've done so manyshows about addiction, and what is so
incredibly frustrating to me is that theaverage number of times people go to rehab
(05:44):
before it takes or before they don'trelapse is a dozen times. Yeah,
that's that's an incredible amount of time. That's an incredible amount of effort,
and it's so incredibly frustrating, andit's like people's lives. I mean,
you're putting your whole life on holdwith this. Yeah, definitely, Yeah,
(06:10):
you definitely feel like you're you're fightinga losing battle. But you know,
to be honest, I don't havea whole lot of opportunity to to
to follow up because the people thatI come in contact with in the K
and A area are generally transient.They're homeless, and they don't Kensington and
(06:30):
Allegany that cross streets where there's theit's commonly referred to as that's the epicenter
of the Kensington drug market. Sothe people I come in contact with are
generally transient, they're homeless, theydon't have access to phones things like that.
(06:53):
So what I do typically is,you know, I give people my
card. If they want to getconnected with services, they can give me
a call. They you know,people can find a way to get a
phone in multitude of ways, andthen you know, if they want to
(07:13):
get help, they give me acall. The other thing is the only
like follow up that I would sayis when I'm driving through sometimes I see
people that you know, I've saved, and I'm oh, that was you
know a few months I gave himat least a few months more of living,
(07:34):
so you know, their their situationmay not have have changed all that
much, but they are still alive. I'm speaking with Ryan Ryan Seger.
He works in Philadelphia. He's asocial worker, but in his free time,
he drives around the Kensington, Alleghenyarea. The section of town is
(07:58):
called Kensington in Philadelphia, which it'sjust it's openly open use of street drugs.
It's like you've never seen anything likeit. It's like a zombie zone
in Philadelphia. What do the policedo about Kensington? How do they handle
(08:20):
this situation? Again? You know, I can't really get too much into
well you've seen of policing, butfrom what I've seen, it's h it's
fairly las fair they you know,there are people that are shooting up on
(08:45):
the sidewalk and you know half ablock away a block away is a squad
car. And I think really thethe police just kind of make their presence
known to try to keep violence toa minimum, which I think, you
know, their presence does, youknow, put a damper on the amount
(09:05):
of over violence, But they don'tseem to do a whole lot about usage.
So distribution, the police do arrestyou for so if you know,
if you get stopped with an amountthat is an intent to sell you,
(09:26):
you get arrested, you go tojail. But in terms of usage,
there's not a whole lot of crackingdown on that. There has been you
know, fentanyl is is the causeof I would say most overdoses now,
and most people just don't even knowthat perhaps the pot they are buying,
(09:48):
which is not you know, ina legal store, but there are so
many storefronts where you know, marijuanais now sold, but it could be
laced with entanel that could kill you, or with painkillers that you may not
get legally. What what do yousee as the solution here? But I
(10:13):
mean, this is out of controland we don't seem to have a handle
on what to do about it.I don't, I honestly, honestly don't.
I don't know. There's a there'sa massive flood of it on the
(10:37):
streets. It's it's honestly, it'stoo easy to get. So I I
really don't have a have a hardfirm solution for that. I was told
that when it comes to a fentaneloverdose, Narcan has to be used twice.
(10:58):
Yes it doesn't, right, Okay, explain this. I've had that,
I've had that that happened. Sooh and by the way, if
you have nar can, so doesthat single dose? Could you use it
twice? Or do you need twofiles of narn so, uh, you
know, the box that it comesin comes with two doses, which is
(11:26):
sufficient for you know, most ods. Most of the time I'll say,
well, I could say three timesout of four one dose is enough and
they're up in five or six minutes. But in the case of FENSONYL,
it's you know, fifty times strongeras you may or may not know,
(11:52):
So two doses you definitely need.There are some who say that every single
one of us should be carrying narcan absolutely at all times. M hm.
Is there a way of getting thisfree? Or do we have to
buy this some drug stores there arethere are like nar can vending machines popping
(12:18):
up in other cities. I haven'tseen them in Philly, but I've seen,
uh, you know, in afew other cities. They're they're popping
up. Before I could get itfrom work, I used to get some
from the pharmacy. You can,you can get it over the counter,
over the counter, you don't needa prescription, and so most I would
(12:45):
say that the easiest way to getit. So my dad had surgery,
you know, a year so ago, and he was prescribed opiates. And
whenever they prescribe opiates, now theygive you a you know, a supply
of narcan and for those that don'tneed it, keep it on hand.
(13:07):
I mean, my dad gave mehis because he doesn't need it, but
I would say keep that on handbecause you know, you may not necessarily
need it, but other people inyour life might. How much is it?
Do you know? It's been afew years since I personally paid for
(13:28):
it, but I think it's aroundfifteen or twenty dollars per box, So
that's two doses per box. Ryan, you're what twenty seven? Yes?
What do you see for your future? It's a great question. Yeah,
(13:50):
what do you want to do ultimately? I mean, you're doing You're doing
so much, you're saving lives,and you're a social worker. Well,
honestly, what I've been thinking aboutthe last you know, year or so
is I want to find a wayto diversify the way that I help people.
(14:11):
You know, the what I dofor a job is help people,
which is great, and I getto, you know, kind of patrol
the streets a little bit, youknow, in my free time. But
I'm definitely open to other avenues ofof helping people. I've been you know,
(14:33):
toying with the idea of doing ayou know, moving to a a
different population, or a you know, a more macro approach to service.
I wish we had more time.I want you to stay in touch with
me. Yeah, whatever your futureholds, I want to hear from you.
(14:56):
You are a special and very unusualperson. I wish the happiest of
holidays, and thank you for thework you do. As some of you
may know, these interviews are prerecorded, and Ryan contacted me to let
me know that he misspoke. Ifyou want to get Narcan over the counter,
it'll cost forty five dollars. You'vebeen listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio,
(15:20):
a production of New York's classic rockQ one O four point three
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,Conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to someone who has been dubbedthe Narcan Fatman. Ryan Sagar, is
(00:22):
a saint. Ryan Sager goes toone of the roughest, most painful areas
of Philadelphia where there are it's likean open air market for drug abuse.
It's just insanely open. It's noteven an open secret, it's just open.
(00:44):
It's the Kensington section of Philadelphia,and he saves lives. He drives
around and looks for people who lookslike look like they're overdosing. Ryan,
how did you even come up withthis idea? How long have you been
doing this? I've been doing thisfor about four years now, I I
(01:07):
you know, four years ago myI started a job in Kensington and uh,
about two weeks into my uh uhmy work, here I was dropping
a I was dropping a resident offtoo to the hospital as this was COVID,
(01:27):
so I was going right to thethe emergency room door. So I
was in that emergency room bay andsomebody, you know, uh drove in.
You know, like a bat outof hell. And they dropped their
friend, uh in the emergency roomparking lot and I just happened to have
narcn on me and I narc andthem and and by the time the uh
(01:52):
the doctors or the emergency room staffcame out to get him, he was,
you know, starting to sheet excuseme, she was, uh,
you know, starting to come backfrom it. And uh. After that,
I just, you know, duringmy my free time, I would
(02:12):
go out and look for people becausewe have nar can arkans of uh phenomenal
substance. It's it literally it doesthe life saving. I you know,
I don't like to think of myselfas being the person that's saving the life.
It's it's dar can, you know. But just you know, you
(02:34):
need to have the willingness to todo it, to stop and and check
on people and make sure that they'rebreathing. So so, how much of
your time is taken up with this? I mean you already have a full
time job. What what are youin the real world, well, the
real world, both the real world. I'm a social worker in Kensington.
(02:55):
I work with predominantly veteran populations,previously homeless and people with mental health and
substance abuse issues. So how muchof your time, like how much a
week? Or are you doing this? I would say, you know,
not more than you know, afew hours a week. You know during
(03:20):
the during the summer, it's it'safter work, and you know, during
the winter months when it's dark,when I get out of work, it's
usually you know, on my lunchbreak, you know, fifteen minutes here,
thirty minutes there. How many livesdo you think you've saved? So
(03:44):
with with Narcan, I've saved fourpeople and then completely unrelated, not narcan
related, incident happened at a comedyshow a couple of months ago, and
I perform CPR for about twenty minutesbefore the paramedics got there, So I
count that one. Yes, ofcourse, a life is a life.
(04:09):
There's controversy about nar CAN because thereare some people who say that by promoting
nar CAN, you are promoting drugabuse, You are condoning drug abuse.
What do you say to these people? Yeah? Absolutely, a common criticism
of of narcan and the work thatI do for me. I come from
(04:33):
a harm reduction standpoint, so youknow, there's I'm not smart enough to
you know, fix the underlying,the underlaying problem. All I can do
is try to try to save liveswhere I can. You know, so
(04:57):
things things that that make drug usesafer. It's kind of a you know,
it's a hard thing to grasp,but if you make the drug use
safer, you give people more opportunitiesto recover eventually, you know, and
some people may never recover, buteverybody gets that chance, you know,
(05:18):
So that that's that's where I'm comingfrom. You ever, do follow up
with people that you have come incontact with to try to get them that
help, because I've done so manyshows about addiction, and what is so
incredibly frustrating to me is that theaverage number of times people go to rehab
(05:44):
before it takes or before they don'trelapse is a dozen times. Yeah,
that's that's an incredible amount of time. That's an incredible amount of effort,
and it's so incredibly frustrating, andit's like people's lives. I mean,
you're putting your whole life on holdwith this. Yeah, definitely, Yeah,
(06:10):
you definitely feel like you're you're fightinga losing battle. But you know,
to be honest, I don't havea whole lot of opportunity to to
to follow up because the people thatI come in contact with in the K
and A area are generally transient.They're homeless, and they don't Kensington and
(06:30):
Allegany that cross streets where there's theit's commonly referred to as that's the epicenter
of the Kensington drug market. Sothe people I come in contact with are
generally transient, they're homeless, theydon't have access to phones things like that.
(06:53):
So what I do typically is,you know, I give people my
card. If they want to getconnected with services, they can give me
a call. They you know,people can find a way to get a
phone in multitude of ways, andthen you know, if they want to
(07:13):
get help, they give me acall. The other thing is the only
like follow up that I would sayis when I'm driving through sometimes I see
people that you know, I've saved, and I'm oh, that was you
know a few months I gave himat least a few months more of living,
(07:34):
so you know, their their situationmay not have have changed all that
much, but they are still alive. I'm speaking with Ryan Ryan Seger.
He works in Philadelphia. He's asocial worker, but in his free time,
he drives around the Kensington, Alleghenyarea. The section of town is
(07:58):
called Kensington in Philadelphia, which it'sjust it's openly open use of street drugs.
It's like you've never seen anything likeit. It's like a zombie zone
in Philadelphia. What do the policedo about Kensington? How do they handle
(08:20):
this situation? Again? You know, I can't really get too much into
well you've seen of policing, butfrom what I've seen, it's h it's
fairly las fair they you know,there are people that are shooting up on
(08:45):
the sidewalk and you know half ablock away a block away is a squad
car. And I think really thethe police just kind of make their presence
known to try to keep violence toa minimum, which I think, you
know, their presence does, youknow, put a damper on the amount
(09:05):
of over violence, But they don'tseem to do a whole lot about usage.
So distribution, the police do arrestyou for so if you know,
if you get stopped with an amountthat is an intent to sell you,
(09:26):
you get arrested, you go tojail. But in terms of usage,
there's not a whole lot of crackingdown on that. There has been you
know, fentanyl is is the causeof I would say most overdoses now,
and most people just don't even knowthat perhaps the pot they are buying,
(09:48):
which is not you know, ina legal store, but there are so
many storefronts where you know, marijuanais now sold, but it could be
laced with entanel that could kill you, or with painkillers that you may not
get legally. What what do yousee as the solution here? But I
(10:13):
mean, this is out of controland we don't seem to have a handle
on what to do about it.I don't, I honestly, honestly don't.
I don't know. There's a there'sa massive flood of it on the
(10:37):
streets. It's it's honestly, it'stoo easy to get. So I I
really don't have a have a hardfirm solution for that. I was told
that when it comes to a fentaneloverdose, Narcan has to be used twice.
(10:58):
Yes it doesn't, right, Okay, explain this. I've had that,
I've had that that happened. Sooh and by the way, if
you have nar can, so doesthat single dose? Could you use it
twice? Or do you need twofiles of narn so, uh, you
know, the box that it comesin comes with two doses, which is
(11:26):
sufficient for you know, most ods. Most of the time I'll say,
well, I could say three timesout of four one dose is enough and
they're up in five or six minutes. But in the case of FENSONYL,
it's you know, fifty times strongeras you may or may not know,
(11:52):
So two doses you definitely need.There are some who say that every single
one of us should be carrying narcan absolutely at all times. M hm.
Is there a way of getting thisfree? Or do we have to
buy this some drug stores there arethere are like nar can vending machines popping
(12:18):
up in other cities. I haven'tseen them in Philly, but I've seen,
uh, you know, in afew other cities. They're they're popping
up. Before I could get itfrom work, I used to get some
from the pharmacy. You can,you can get it over the counter,
over the counter, you don't needa prescription, and so most I would
(12:45):
say that the easiest way to getit. So my dad had surgery,
you know, a year so ago, and he was prescribed opiates. And
whenever they prescribe opiates, now theygive you a you know, a supply
of narcan and for those that don'tneed it, keep it on hand.
(13:07):
I mean, my dad gave mehis because he doesn't need it, but
I would say keep that on handbecause you know, you may not necessarily
need it, but other people inyour life might. How much is it?
Do you know? It's been afew years since I personally paid for
(13:28):
it, but I think it's aroundfifteen or twenty dollars per box, So
that's two doses per box. Ryan, you're what twenty seven? Yes?
What do you see for your future? It's a great question. Yeah,
(13:50):
what do you want to do ultimately? I mean, you're doing You're doing
so much, you're saving lives,and you're a social worker. Well,
honestly, what I've been thinking aboutthe last you know, year or so
is I want to find a wayto diversify the way that I help people.
(14:11):
You know, the what I dofor a job is help people,
which is great, and I getto, you know, kind of patrol
the streets a little bit, youknow, in my free time. But
I'm definitely open to other avenues ofof helping people. I've been you know,
(14:33):
toying with the idea of doing ayou know, moving to a a
different population, or a you know, a more macro approach to service.
I wish we had more time.I want you to stay in touch with
me. Yeah, whatever your futureholds, I want to hear from you.
(14:56):
You are a special and very unusualperson. I wish the happiest of
holidays, and thank you for thework you do. As some of you
may know, these interviews are prerecorded, and Ryan contacted me to let
me know that he misspoke. Ifyou want to get Narcan over the counter,
it'll cost forty five dollars. You'vebeen listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio,
(15:20):
a production of New York's classic rockQ one O four point three
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