The Good Samaritan
Radiolab
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 43.5K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2023
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tuesday afternoon, summer of 2017: Scotty Hatton and Scottie Wightman made a decision to help someone in need and both paid a price for their actions that day — actions that have led to a legal, moral, and scientific puzzle about how we balance accountability and forgiveness.
In this 2019 episode, we go to Bath County, Kentucky, where, as one health official put it, opioids have created “a hole the size of Kentucky.” We talk to the people on all sides of this story about stemming the tide of overdoses. We wrestle with the science of poison and fear, and we try to figure out whether and when the drive to protect and help those around us should rise above the law.
Special thanks to Earl Willis, Bobby Ratliff, Ronnie Goldie, Megan Fisher, Alan Caudill, Nick Jones, Dan Wermerling, Terry Bunn, Robin Thompson and the staff at KIPRC, Charles Landon, Charles P Gore, Jim McCarthy, Ann Marie Farina, Dr. Jeremy Faust and Dr. Ed Boyer, Justin Brower, Kathy Robinson, Zoe Renfro, John Bucknell, Chris Moraff, Jeremiah Laster, Tommy Kane, Jim McCarthy, Sarah Wakeman, and Al Tompkins.
CDC recommendations on helping people who overdose: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pdf/patients/Preventing-an-Opioid-Overdose-Tip-Card-a.pdf
Find out where to get naloxone: https://prevent-protect.org/. It is also now available over-the-counter. (https://zpr.io/SMX9yYDUta7a).
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Peter Andrey Smith with Matt KieltyProduced by - Matt Kielty
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before we start, the following story contains a moment or two that's pretty intense and |
| 0:08.7 | may not be suitable for young kids. |
| 0:12.9 | Okay. |
| 0:13.9 | All right. |
| 0:14.9 | Okay. |
| 0:15.9 | All right. |
| 0:16.9 | You're listening to Radio Lab. |
| 0:20.9 | Radio from WNYC. |
| 0:22.9 | Yeah. |
| 0:23.9 | Three, why. |
| 0:24.9 | Yeah. |
| 0:25.9 | Yeah. |
| 0:26.9 | Yeah. |
| 0:27.9 | So Peter, Matt, yeah. |
| 0:28.9 | But where do you want to launch into this? |
| 0:32.9 | Yeah, we're going to start with this call. |
| 0:37.9 | Tuesday, August 8, 2017. |
| 0:42.9 | This is a call from Bath County, Eastern Kentucky. |
| 0:45.9 | 13, 50, 1 and 26 seconds. |
| 0:54.9 | It's a call from dispatch to the Bath County EMS station. |
| 1:00.9 | These are the people that are dispatched to medical emergencies. |
| 1:03.9 | West Titan, where was like Warner to a clock in the afternoon, something like that. |
... |
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