How many of the 1,263 Tennesseans who died of opioid overdoses in 2014 could have been saved with an opioid antidote?

There’s no way to know, said Don Green, executive director of the University of Tennessee Law Enforcement Innovation Center, but he hopes some training the center is providing starting this month can dramatically decrease the number of overdose deaths going forward.

Green, who was Deputy Chief of Police for Knoxville Police Department before retiring and joining the UT center in 2008, said a grant from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee’s Tennessee Health Foundation is making it possible for the center to train more than 350 members of law enforcement, statewide, on administering naloxone. The drug can reverse the effects of opioid overdose if given in time.

Read the full story in the Knoxville News Sentinel.