MSHA, RN • Emergency Care • 30+ Years Emory Healthcare
I want to introduce myself properly.
My name is Charles Folsom. I've spent more than 30 years as an emergency nurse at Emory Healthcare, managing hundreds of high-acuity cases, including substance-related emergencies that most people never forget once they've seen them.
Over that same period, I built a clinical technology company, worked on national health system adoption, and accumulated more than 30 million views sharing what I know with families online.
None of that is why I'm writing to you today.
I'm writing because of a comment I read under one of my videos. A woman said: \"We lost my cousin last year and I had no idea what to do. Why don't more people talk about this?\"
Eight more people replied with the same story.
That comment lives in my head. It's why I created the Overdose Response Guide. And it's why you're getting this email.
Over the next few weeks, I'll share what 30 years in the ER actually taught me about drug emergencies, what families need to know, and why preparation is the only thing that changes outcomes.
No lectures. No politics. Clinical truth, in plain language.
Start here: everything I publish is available at the link below.
Visit My HubCharles Folsom
RN, MSHA
Emergency Care Nurse, Emory Healthcare
MSHA, RN • Emergency Care • 30+ Years Emory Healthcare
Here's what I've seen, over and over, across 30 years of emergency care.
A family member has a drug emergency. Opioid overdose. Fentanyl toxicity. THC psychosis. Something that looks like sleep but isn't.
Someone calls 911. Emergency services are four to eight minutes out. The window for the most critical interventions is already open and closing.
And the people in the room freeze.
Not because they don't care. Because no one ever told them what to do.
1 in 3 Americans personally knows someone affected by the opioid crisis. The comment thread under one of my videos had 8 people who had already lost a family member, all saying the same thing: \"I didn't know what to do.\"
That freeze is not a character flaw. It is a preparation gap.
Here's what I explain to every family that ends up in my ER after a substance-related emergency:
These three things are the difference between a family that acts and a family that watches.
I'm not saying this to alarm you. I'm saying it because the opioid crisis is not going away, fentanyl is in places families aren't expecting, and preparation is the only variable families actually control.
In my next email, I'll tell you what 30 years in the ER actually changed in how I think about this. Not what I learned in school. What the cases taught me.
Charles
RN, MSHA
MSHA, RN • Emergency Care • 30+ Years Emory Healthcare
When I started in emergency care, I believed what most healthcare providers believe.
That patient education was a clinical department's job. That families would figure out what they needed when they needed it. That the ER was the safety net, and the safety net would hold.
The ER held. The families fell through it anyway.
Here's what changed my thinking.
I treated a teenager for opioid overdose. Counterfeit pills, fentanyl-laced. His mother was in the waiting room. When I went out to speak with her, she asked me: \"What should I have done when I found him?\" Not \"what's wrong with him.\" What should she have done in those four minutes before the ambulance came.
I gave her the clinical answer. Recovery position. Check for breathing. Call 911, stay on the line. But she didn't know any of that. Nobody had told her. And her son nearly died in the time it took the ambulance to arrive.
\"The ER is not the first responder. The family in the room is the first responder.\"
That shift in thinking changed everything about how I communicate publicly.
I stopped talking to other healthcare professionals. I started talking to families. Not in clinical language, but in the vocabulary families actually use when they're scared and standing over someone they love.
Drug emergency. Opioid overdose. Fentanyl. Narcan. What it looks like. What it does. What to do.
That's what led me to social media. That's what led to 30 million views. And that's what led to the Overdose Response Guide.
Next email, I'm going to show you the specific proof that convinced me this education gap was bigger than I imagined. The comment thread I couldn't ignore.
Charles
RN, MSHA
MSHA, RN • Emergency Care • 30+ Years Emory Healthcare
Let me show you what I mean when I say the education gap is bigger than people realize.
I posted a video about THC psychosis in a 9-year-old. The video got 447,000 views, 42,000 likes, 3,600 comments.
But it wasn't the views that stopped me. It was the comment thread.
In one comment thread, under a single video, 8 different people shared that they had lost a family member to a substance-related emergency they were unprepared for. Eight separate people. Strangers to each other. The same story.
\"We lost my cousin last year and I had no idea what to do. Why don't more people talk about this?\"
There were six more.
These are not statistics. These are families who were in the room. They called 911. They waited. They watched. And they did not know that there was something they could do in those minutes before help arrived.
This is the education gap I'm trying to close. Not with a training program. Not with a wellness course. With three things: recognize the signs, stabilize the situation, get the right help fast.
That's what the Overdose Response Guide is.
In my next email, I'm going to tell you exactly who this guide is for, what's inside it, and how to get it. No pitch. Just the information.
Charles
RN, MSHA
MSHA, RN • Emergency Care • 30+ Years Emory Healthcare
Over the past week and a half, I've told you about the opioid crisis, the education gap, and the families I've seen in my ER who were unprepared for a moment they never expected.
Here's the difference between a family that freezes and a family that acts.
Terrified. Scrolling. No plan. No Narcan in the house. No idea what the signs of opioid overdose actually look like. The window for intervention closes before help arrives.
A family with a plan. Overdose warning signs memorized. Narcan accessible before it's needed. The terrifying moment becomes an executable sequence instead of a freeze.
The Overdose Response Guide is what I built to close that gap.
Here's what's inside:
This is not a wellness course. This is clinical truth from 30 years of emergency care, written in the vocabulary families actually use, not Google, not a training program, not an influencer.
It is free. No credit card. One email and it's in your inbox.
Free. No credit card. 5 minutes.
The guide I wish every family had before they ended up in my ER. Now they can have it before that moment comes.
Charles
RN, MSHA
\"I lost my son Nov 18 last year to this. He was my only child and 20 years old.\"