"Please don't die baby. Please don't die."
"Please don't die."
The female's voice pleads as a male lies on the floor and a Macomb County sheriff's deputy gives him nasal spray to save him from a drug overdose.
"Narcan administered," a deputy says in the short clip.
The video isn't a re-enactment. It's real body camera footage from a call the sheriff's office responded to. And it's in the middle of the office's lip sync challenge video, which drew more than 2 million Facebook viewers by Friday afternoon.
Police departments across the country have recently participated in popular, often-lighthearted videos on social media, lip syncing to pop music and dancing. But this one from the Macomb County Sheriff's Office, published Sept. 1, is a powerful video that starts out fun then -- with one depicted dispatch call -- changes to somber, similar to what happens in real life. It's a video that is meant to send a message and, hopefully, save a life.
Commenters were moved by the video on the sheriff's office's Facebook page. They included people who lost loved ones to drugs and others who, themselves, have fought drug addiction.
"This really hit close to home for me. I lost my beautiful vibrant daughter at 22 to a heroin overdose. Somedays I can't see an end to this epidemic and then there's others where I see young people who are working diligently to maintain a program of recovery, and know there's (hope). Ty for taking the time to not just have fun (with) lip sync challenge but help spread awareness," wrote one commenter.
Another wrote: "Very tough job, very appreciated. I'm sure you never thought this would be part of your job, as many of us never thought we'd see our kid laying there also."
Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said the video "sends the message home."
"If you bring the reality into it, it draws the viewer in," he said.
Macomb County Sheriff Sgt. Renee Yax, left, and deputy Gianna Caporuscio are seen in a screenshot of a lip sync challenge video posted Sept. 1, 2018 to Facebook by the agency. (Photo: Macomb County Sheriff's Office)
Other departments in Minnesota, California and Georgia have also taken on serious issues, such as suicide and domestic and family violence, in their videos, turning them essentially into public service announcements and providing information about resources to help people.
The Macomb County Sheriff's Office video is unique; while much of it is staged, it sprinkles in a handful of actual body-camera footage, showing deputies saving people who are overdosing.
Sgt. Renee Yax, who spearheaded the video effort, said while the fun lip sync challenge videos produced by law enforcement are wonderful, she wanted to do something different. Something that would send a message.
With the county's significant opioid epidemic and record number of overdose deaths last year at 380, Yax said: "we wanted to try to bring light to it."
"In real life, I feel like everyone has been touched by substance abuse," she said. "It happens everywhere."
The response to the video has been as strong as the video itself. Beyond the millions of views, it had nearly 56,000 shares, more than 20,000 reactions and 3,500 comments by early Friday afternoon.
"Their courage and bravery, (the video) was something outside the box," said Katie Donovan, executive vice president of Families Against Narcotics, whose daughter has battled addiction for a decade and was saved last year by Macomb County deputies using Narcan. "It was extremely powerful. I think it was very courageous, done in a graceful manner, showing what truly happens."
41-B District Court Judge Linda Davis, president of Families Against Narcotics, said the video was "impactful and powerful" and shows how addiction hits "all walks of life."
The video shows, in its staged portions, deputies responding to overdose calls at a mobile home, a small home and two larger homes in the suburbs.
It also depicts a drug court graduation in 41-B District Court, a woman preparing to take drugs and a woman being notified by authorities of a loved one's death.
It ends with a message from Wickersham talking about the epidemic and how deputies have saved lives because they carry Narcan -- the first law enforcement agency in Macomb County to do so, starting in 2015.
From 2015 to the present, Macomb County deputies have used Narcan 236 times, with 162 saves, Yax said.
But, Wickersham reminds people in the video, "this is not the solution."
In his video message, Wickersham shares information about available resources, such as Families Against Narcotics, which has more than 20 chapters in Michigan and one in North Carolina.
Wickersham also discusses the Hope Not Handcuffs program, where someone can addicted to drugs or alcohol can turn themselves in at a police station to get help and treatment without the fear of going to jail. The program launched in 2017 in Macomb County, the first county in Michigan to implement such a program that cropped up in other forms across the country.
Sixty-nine police departments in eight counties in Michigan now participate, and more than 1,600 people are in treatment, Davis and Donovan said.
Wickersham ends the lip sync challenge video with: "It's never too late to take your life back."
The video is posted with a "viewer discretion advised" notice and an explanation that body camera footage is used. It also wishes anyone suffering with substance abuse a successful recovery. No overtime was used in creating the video, and people from Channel 2 (WJBK-TV) helped to make it, according to the sheriff's office.
The video, which is staged except for the body camera footage, starts out in black-and-white with what appears to be a drug transaction between two people.
It moves to a fun tone with Yax and another deputy sitting in a patrol car, listening to, singing and grooving to Aretha Franklin's "Respect." They're debating whether they should participate with other law enforcement in carpool karaoke or the popular, national lip sync challenge.
Then, a call comes in. A possible heroin overdose with an unresponsive subject.
"Another one?" one deputy says.
"Hope you got your Narcan," Yax replies.
As they start to drive to the call, they start lip syncing to another song, the ballad "Sober" by Demi Lovato, who has had her own battle with addiction.
"I got no excuses. For all these goodbyes. Call me when it's over. 'Cause I'm dying inside."
Seconds later, the first Macomb sheriff's office video body camera clip appears. Then, a bit later, another one.
"Oh my God, he just came back, literally," a woman's voice says as a man lays on the floor and a sheriff's deputy administers Narcan spray in his nose.
Wickersham and Yax said county attorneys cleared the use of the body camera footage and said such footage would be available under the Freedom of Information Act.
"Maybe (someone) will turn around, get some help. I think it was more important for the society to see the video then to keep it out," Yax said. "If it saves one person and it makes one person take back their life, it was totally worth it."
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@wzzm13.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter.
