A Tale of Epi-Pen Destruction And Fire Stations

One day late last summer, I looked at my calendar and saw that I had at some point in the past written "check epi-pens" on the day that I had reached on those paper petals of time.  I checked my daughter's epi-pens.  Two were expired (not the ones she was carrying - her doctor had renewed us a little early that year due to a newer, better brand of auto-injector that has come out, so we had some extra ones - not usually the case) and one expired in September.  It was almost September, but I left that one alone and wrote "get rid of expired epi-pen" on September first in my calendar.

I took the two expired ones to CVS.  I told the pharmacist that they were expired and to please destroy/dispose of them safely.  I have done this quite a few times now.  I cannot imagine just throwing one of these in the trash and worrying that someone going through the trash would get hurt by it.  I will not chance that.  Although this task had always been accomplished without a hitch before, this time the pharmacist turned me down.  He said they did not get rid of them anymore.  I said the pharmacy was where I had gotten them and what was I supposed to do with them?  He said to take them to the fire station.

I went to a fire station.

The fire station said it did not have an ambulance and I needed to go to a fire station with an ambulance for that.  I asked where the nearest one was and went there (all those field trips and I did not realize they did not all have ambulances).  Although there was one of those Safe Haven signs at the fire station with the ambulance, their doorbell did not work and no one answered when I knocked, although the fire truck and the ambulance were both there.  I knocked some more.  I dug a phone book out of my car and called fire administration on my cell and asked them to let the folks at that fire station know that there was someone outside.  They said okay.  Time passed.  A fire fighter came out.  I told him what CVS said and he took the epi-pens.  I thanked him.

Then in September, I did it again with the other epi-pen.  Still had to call fire administration to get someone to answer the door except this time that did not work either so I went to another fire station.  They were cleaning their fire truck or some such thing so I was able to walk right up to them and hand over the expired epi-pen.

I am grateful the fire fighters are there to take the epi-pens, but if you need to abandon an infant, the hospital might be a safer bet in terms of actually finding a human to hand the kid off to, I think.  At least until that doorbell gets fixed.