Roz Pichardo, who lives and works in Kensington, has saved more than 2,200 lives over the years, writes Phaedra Trethan for USA Today.

She records each save in a pocket New Testament she always carries with her.

“I call them ‘Sunshine,’ because to call them ‘addict,’ or ‘junkie,’ or ‘zombie’ … It’s dehumanizing. It’s stigmatizing,” said Pichardo.

Pichardo is one of the super-lifesavers on the front lines of the opioid epidemic: trained medical, police, and social workers who have saved thousands from fatal overdoses throughout the nation.

For Pichardo, saving lives is a personal mission.

“People ask, ‘Why write them down?'” she said. “It helps me humanize them and remember them. After a while it can be traumatic, so you try to put that in the back of your head, but I still want to be able to go back later and say, ‘I saved them.'”

Pichardo leads Operation Save Our City, the organization that embraces the concept of harm reduction. The goal is to keep people as healthy as possible and alive, so they still have a chance at recovery.

She sees her role as keeping people alive long enough to go home and have their next breathe.

Read more about Roz Pichardo’s background and mission to save lives at USA Today.

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