The young woman was just getting off work on May 11 and stopped at the Goshen Gulf gas station to fill up. She noticed a black Kia near the store entrance, still running, windows down.
“As I pulled into the gas station, it appeared as if someone was possibly slumped over but I thought that they could be reaching down.” Jeannine LoCicero saw people enter and leave the convenience store pointing at the car and “making faces.”
LoCicero decided to see what the problem was. She is a case supervisor for Orange County Children’s Services and her years of training taught her to notice abnormal behavior. “Whenever you see somebody in distress or needs assistance, you’re there responding.”
She observed the young man in the Kia had labored breathing. She saw track marks on his arm. That was her cue to get help. As a man walked by she asked him to call 911. Another man approached and suggested the man in the car might be diabetic.
LoCicero was convinced it was a drug overdose and asked the man if he had Narcan, the drug that is used to reverse the effects of a heroin overdose.
LoCicero saw a police vehicle nearby had pulled someone over.
She started to run toward the police car and another person following. “So here I am running across the parking lot and he all of a sudden was running next to me and he’s, like, ‘You’re in heels. I’ll go.'”
Gas station manager Faiz Isa came out to help. Isa stayed with the nonresponsive man while LoCicero ran for help. He laid the man back, trying to get a response. “We worked as a team,” Isa said.
Goshen police officer Christopher Smoulcey appeared on the scene with Narcan. LoCicero says the young man did not respond until given the drug. According to the police report, the young man’s arms appeared to have needle marks with fresh blood.
