By Siena Duncan
Chattanooga Times Free Press
HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. — Hamilton County’s new overdose prevention team is live and ready for calls, as of Monday morning.
Announced earlier this year by County Mayor Weston Wamp, the team is the first of its kind in Tennessee, officials have said. It’s modeled after some teams in municipalities in other states, like North Carolina and West Virginia.
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The team consists of pairs of paramedics and peer support specialists — people with experience overcoming addiction. It will operate through the county’s Emergency Medical Services division.
A pair from the team will respond to calls where someone is refusing an ambulance but is facing a substance abuse crisis. The pair will then perform a medical assessment on the scene and attempt to connect and build an ongoing relationship with the person, offering referrals to the county’s nonprofit partners, like the McNabb Center and LaunchPad, which provide recovery services.
The creation of the overdose prevention team originated with issues with opioid addiction within the county, officials said during a Monday press conference, but the team is not limited to responding to just opioid-related calls. Team members will also take on patients referred to them from hospitals as well.
The goal is to help people struggling with addiction by connecting them to as many resources as possible, said Linda Kilgore, a paramedic on the newly formed team.
“We will talk to them, gauge their readiness or their interest in entering treatment,” Kilgore said, “and then we’ll become that bridge for them.”
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There are eight members on the team — three paramedics, three peer support specialists, two navigators from the county Health Department and a team supervisor. The specialists are all new hires, and one paramedic is a new hire. The remaining two were existing county paramedics who applied for the position — Kilgore and Alex Carroll. The team will have two dedicated vehicles.
Funding for the team comes from Tennessee’s Opioid Abatement Council, which decides where to funnel public dollars that come from opioid-related lawsuit settlements. The county expects the funding to continue over the course of 20 years funded entirely by opioid settlement amounts. Currently, the team is allotted $800,000 in the county’s budget.
Andy Miller, the son of former county EMS director John Miller, is one of the team’s peer specialists, certified by the state. He has struggled in the past with opioid addiction, he said, and he’s familiar with his new coworkers because he remembers being in the back of an ambulance with them in the past.
He’s hoping this team can, at the very least, take some stress off families, he said.
“I kept everything under wraps until I couldn’t,” Miller said, “so my parents didn’t know until the very end. They knew nothing about any of these resources that we have here today.”
He also hopes he can take full advantage of his unique position to help others, he said.
“I think having a peer recovery specialist there that has been through this, for me, would have helped a lot,” he said. “I would have been more prone to listen to somebody that has been through it.
The creation of the overdose prevention team follows a year of improving overdose numbers reported from the Chattanooga Police Department. Hamilton County Health Department reports show the majority of overdoses within the county have occurred in zip codes within the city limits over the past few years.
There was a 32% decrease in overdoses from 652 in 2023 down to 471 in 2024, according to city data. Overdose deaths fell 49%, from 165 in 2023 to 84 in 2024. The numbers, included in the Police Department’s 2024 annual crime report, draw from the computer-automated dispatch through the Hamilton County 911 center.
The Mayor’s Office has also allotted about $2 million of the state-supplied money to a variety of recovery-focused organizations: LaunchPad, the McNabb Center, Chambliss Center for Children, Boys and Girls Club of Chattanooga, Partnership for Families, Children and Adults, the End School-age Homelessness Initiative and the Council for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services.
People who wish to reach the overdose prevention team can call 423-209-7777. The team is available from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. all days of the week.
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