To Davis Schneider, his older brother Steven was “kind of like a Superman.”
“He worked as a nurse up until he died. He worked every single day to help people in need,” the Toronto Blue Jays player said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“He was kind of like the big popular guy who played a lot of sports and everyone kind of loved him and I looked up to him every single day. Still do.”
But in November 2020, his brother died of an opioid overdose in a relative’s home in New Jersey, where Schneider is from.
Steven was 26 and alone in a room in the house.
“During COVID, everyone was kind of dealing with some stuff. It was just (an) abnormal time,” said Schneider.
“Mentally, he just wasn’t in a really good spot. And I didn’t know that. He never really kind of showed me he was kind of struggling …. And, you know, he fell into some drug stuff,” he said.
Schneider didn’t know about naloxone — the drug that can reverse opioid overdoses and save lives if administered in time.
“Probably the most devastating thing is that he was alone, he wasn’t with anyone,” he said.
Schneider now thinks if someone had been with his brother and had naloxone, his life could have been saved.
So when Emergent BioSolutions — the manufacturer of naloxone’s brand-name Narcan nasal spray — invited Schneider to become a paid spokesperson to raise awareness, the 27-year-old accepted, hoping to prevent other people from dying.
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The company publicly announced the partnership on Wednesday.
More than 55,000 Canadians died in the opioid poisoning crisis between January 2016 and September 2025, according to Public Health Agency of Canada data.
The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction says about 20 people die of opioid overdoses every day in the country — and many of those deaths could have been prevented by naloxone.
But even though naloxone kits are available for free across the country, including in many pharmacies and health centres, much of the general public doesn’t pick them up, health experts say.
“There is sometimes a denial about how close to home opioid overdoses can be, and people find themselves in scenarios or situations where they didn’t expect to be,” said Dr. Taryn Lloyd, an emergency department physician and addiction medicine specialist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
“There’s sometimes this idea that ‘it doesn’t happen to me or to the people around me.’ And we know that’s not true. Unfortunately, opioid overdoses affect all people from all walks of life and all ages.”
When someone has an opioid overdose, they stop breathing and that’s what leads to death, Lloyd said.
Naloxone reverses that effect, she said, noting that she sees many people brought to the ER who would not have survived if someone they knew or a bystander hadn’t given them the drug.
In the hospital, patients receive naloxone intravenously or through an intramuscular injection, Lloyd said.
Although intramuscular injectors are available in the community, many people find the nasal spray less intimidating to use and it can be just as effective, she said.
If someone is drowsy or unconscious and their breathing is irregular, that’s the time to give naloxone if there’s a possibility it could be an opioid overdose, Lloyd said.
If the overdose is from a non-opioid drug, the naloxone won’t work but it also won’t do any harm, she said.
Lloyd, who is not involved in the Emergent BioSolutions partnership with Schneider, said the baseball player’s story can help to reduce stigma — and she hopes people will pick up a naloxone kit as a result.
“I encourage people to have one in their car, have one in their backpack or bag that they use every day just to have available,” she said.
Schneider said he packs a naloxone kit when he goes on the road with the Jays.
But he also wants to see naloxone kits available “in every public place, like a fire extinguisher (or) first-aid kit.”
That would be ideal, said Tim Deloughery, a substance use health specialist at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.
“The bottom line is naloxone saves lives, but it only works if it’s available in the moment someone needs it,” he said.
“It acts fast. It’s forcing opioids to unbind from the receptors in the body.”
Schneider misses his brother every day, remembering how he pushed him to be better as he played through the “grind” of the minor leagues on his quest to make it to Major League Baseball.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
