Montville ― The public health district that serves the town is considering placing a weatherproof box here that would contain free life-saving Narcan kits that residents could use.

At last week’s Town Council meeting, the health directors for the Uncas Health District, which serves the town, and the neighboring Ledge Light Health District proposed the idea during a presentation of their NLC Cares program.

The program, in addition to distributing Narcan, also known as naloxone, provides access to one-on-one support, harm reduction and medical-based resources. Narcan can reverse the effect of an opioid overdose.

Ledge Light began installing the boxes last year, starting in New London, and has since put them in Waterford, Groton and Stonington, the district’s health director, Jennifer Muggeo, said Monday.

Uncas Health Director Patrick McCormack said the boxes would be placed in busy areas, such as Route 32, that are frequented by the public. Four boxes are planned for the 11 towns in the Uncas Health District communities. One would be in Montville.

Residents would be able to take a Narcan kit out of the box at no cost. The boxes would also contain fentanyl test strips along with information on NLC Cares in both English and Spanish.

McCormack said he will discuss where to place the boxes with the individual towns. As soon the boxes are installed, their locations will be publicized on the NLC Cares website at www.nlccares.com.

Last year, there were 125 fatal overdoses in New London County, according to the CT State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System. Eight happened in Montville.

“These statistics are only about the fatal overdoses and its really important that we count those and recognize it’s a failure in our response to the overdose epidemic,” Muggeo said. “But also recognize that more people survive overdoses then experience fatal overdoses ― because of naloxone.”

d.drainville@theday.com