PORT ANGELES — The success of Port Angeles’ opioid overdose response program, Operation Shielding Hope, is one piece of a puzzle that saw Clallam County’s overdose death rate decrease by 63 percent over one year.
“It’s really taken a village to produce these numbers,” Port Angeles Fire Department (PAFD) Chief Derell Sharp said.
Operation Shielding Hope is a team of personnel that has equipment and specialized training to deal with substance use disorders, overdoses and behavioral health crises. The team works to reduce the impact of overdoses, establishing trusted and meaningful relationships with community members, business owners and individuals affected by opioid use disorder, Sharp said.
The end goal is a reduction in repeat overdoses and overdose deaths, as well as referral of individuals to substance use disorder treatment.
In March 2024, during the early days of the program’s existence, Sharp said Clallam County had the second highest overdose rate in the state with more than 73 deaths per 100,000 people. More than 70 percent of those overdoses occurred in Port Angeles.
During that time, crews often would arrive and find the victim had been given up to four times the recommended dose of Narcan, an opioid overdose reversal drug.
Many of the survivors would walk away from the EMS crews, Sharp said, and more than 60 percent of overdose survivors refused treatment or transport to a hospital.
That limited the ability of the fire department to refer individuals to substance use disorder services, which led to repeat overdoses. That also led to compassion fatigue for the crew, Sharp said.
The police and fire department hypothesized that many overdose survivors were refusing treatment and transport due to the high doses of Narcan in their system, which was causing those individuals to quickly address the withdrawal symptoms by drugging again. To help address that problem, they brainstormed implementation of an overdose response team that could administer buprenorphine.
Buprenorphine is a medicine that partially removes opioid withdrawal symptoms.
In January 2024, the Port Angeles Fire Department (PAFD) received approval from the state for a two-year pilot program of an overdose response team. In February, the PAFD used opioid settlement funds to equip paramedics with necessary equipment, and in March, the post-overdose response team was fully launched.
Last June, the program grew yet again when the city received a $350,000 grant from the University of Washington, which allowed the city to enhance and expand its response to behavioral health and substance use disorders, Sharp said.
Now, community paramedics respond to almost all dispatched overdoses, with support from a Port Angeles Police Department (PAPD) community resource officer. When those teams are off duty, on-duty personnel refer overdose survivors to them.
In the past year, more than 78 percent of the individuals that the community paramedics responded to were linked to outside services, compared to a 3 percent success rate when community paramedics did not arrive on scene.
From March 2024 to March 2025, Clallam County dropped from having the second highest overdose fatality rate to the 11th highest, Sharp said.
After testing the hypothesis, however, Sharp said the most critical aspect of these teams was not the administration of buprenorphine but “the compassion and care of the community paramedic team.”
The overdose response team also is aided by partners such as Reflections Counseling Services, Peninsula Behavioral Health’s R.E.A.L. Teams, the North Olympic Healthcare Network, the Jamestown Healing Clinic, Olympic Medical Center, the Clallam County Jail and Clallam County Health and Human Services, particularly its harm reduction center and Narcan distribution program.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
