LYNN — It all began with a routine parking enforcement check — something Gary Yanco, a parking enforcement supervisor, does daily.
Trained in enforcing parking safety protocols, meter maintenance, and even emergency response by the Public Health Department, Yanco arrived on Buffum Street without knowing what would arise as he checked meters.
Walking by on his normal route on June 24, Yanco passed a gentleman sitting in a wheelchair in the traffic lane inside Buffum Lot, with his head slumped all the way back and his mouth wide open.
After asking whether the gentleman was okay, there was no response. Hesitant to walk closer, not knowing if it was a heat-related incident in the 98-degree weather, Yanco felt something off about the situation.
This was not a heat-related incident; it was an active drug overdose.
“He started doing the gurgle heavy breathing that Candice McClory taught us in the training, where you’re kind of gasping for breath because of the fact that you did overdose,” Yanco said.
With his vehicle nearby, Yanco grabbed his phone and called 911 as he administered Narcan twice. When the Fire Department and Police Department arrived, a third dose of Narcan was administered to the man overdosing.
“That one was very scary because the gentleman was also in a wheelchair and I didn’t know if he had any underlying issues or if he had any health conditions … and when he woke up, he was not making any sense,” Yanco said. “The police were familiar with who the individual was; it wasn’t his first, second, or third time. They knew him on a first-name basis.”
Following the incident, the man Yanco responded to was brought to Salem Hospital to recover.
The day after this incident, on June 25, Yanco and his coworker, Corey Bingham, stood on the corner of Union Street and Silsbee Street enforcing parking safety protocols when an individual walked up to them and said a man in the cemetery behind Silsbee Street was not waking up.
“Luckily, I had my Narcan inside my printer pouch that I have,” Yanco said. “There’s a belt loop on the back, and I keep the Narcan in there.”
Yanco then immediately ran to the cemetery, but could not find the man in need because he was slouched over behind a headstone between Harrington School and the Cemetery grounds.
He found the man slumped over with his head between his legs, touching the grass below him. Yanco lifted the man’s stiff body by the shoulders to lift his head and rest it on the back of the headstone, to administer the Narcan properly.
“I Narcan’d him twice as the police showed up, and I believe they Narcan’d him one more time after that, but luckily the ambulance came, and the police officers said, ‘Oh, two days in a row?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I guess I’m making a habit out of this’,” Yanco said.
The officers shared with Yanco that this gentleman had just recently left the hospital, recovering from a separate overdose. Yanco mentioned how harrowing it can be to physically move an individual in active overdose, but that it’s necessary.
Being the first person on the scene in the two recent incidents and the six overdoses total that he’s responded to since 2023, Yanco shared what it feels like to be the first emergency-trained individual to respond to these situations.
“It feels like a very big responsibility at times that we don’t really know what we sign up for, you know when you accept a job,” Yanco said. “I never thought that it’d be a first responder job, when I first started working here in 2021, but obviously with the times that we live in, situations change and things happen, but it is a very nerve-wracking feeling at times because we’ve seen people overdose, we’ve seen fights, there’s been stabbings, there’s people hit by cars… we’re always the first ones there and we try to do our best to help.”
The responsibility has not left Yanco and his other department workers with just stress and worry. It has reinforced a strong sense of accountability to make a positive change that could save someone’s life. To Yanco, every life has value and deserves compassion.
“It feels like you have such a responsibility on your shoulders in a good way, to make sure people can see tomorrow,” Yanco said. “We all deserve a tomorrow. We don’t need to let a stranger get hurt and immediately pull out your cell phone and record it and post it online like some people do. We’re all human, and everybody deserves to be treated like humans.”
When someone is in a life-or-death situation, Yanco believes judgment should not even be a thought, and he takes pride in being able to make sure the individuals whom he saved get a second chance.
To raise awareness in the public, Yanco wants Lynn residents to know that he realizes how invasive it can feel to put your hands on another person without their consent, but in situations like these, time is of the essence, and it’s a simple, foolproof process to administer Narcan.
On average, Yanco has four canisters of Narcan on his person and in his car for incidents like these, and it’s become second nature in the morning to grab his wallet, phone, keys, and Narcan. He even slipped an extra canister into his wife’s purse in case of emergency when they’re off duty.
Parking Director Jessica Chiappini shared that after Narcan canisters are used, any and all parking enforcement employees can get more at the Public Health Department.
“The Public Health Department came and trained my guys, so my guys carry Narcan in their cars,” Chiappini said. “We have needle boxes that are in the municipal lots that we allow public health to put there because we’ve found a lot of needles in the lots.”
All potential public safety concerns can be and have been responded to by the Lynn Parking Department employees, and Chiappini is grateful they have the training in order to make an even deeper positive change in the community.
Yanco isn’t the only parking enforcement officer who has responded to emergencies and saved individuals in dangerous situations; the entire team has done what he does. Chiappini shared that the feedback her staff receives from their efforts, whether it’s in overdose response or ticketing cars, has never reflected the good they do from their hearts.
“Gary is a wonderful, wonderful employee,” Chiappini said. “I could not have asked for a better employee. I have a good group of enforcement officers; they’re all very caring. It’s like we have our own little family. They care about their jobs, they work very hard, and unfortunately they are like the lowest paid employees in the city.”
Misconceptions and mistreatments arise toward all Parking Enforcement Officers like Yanco, and it sometimes gets physical. With the amount of stories he has, he said he could write a novel series like Harry Potter.
Yanco has been hit by a car, spit on, slapped in the face, had empty and full glass bottles thrown at him, cans thrown at him, and even an ice cream sandwich thrown at him and his coworkers… all because he was enforcing parking safety tickets.
“I have three young daughters at home,” Yanco said. “A 10-year-old, a six-year-old, and a three-year-old, and I know it sounds cliché, but I always think about them first, because not only is this my livelihood, but also I want them to see the good in people. I don’t want them to see me react negatively to someone else’s negative-ness in their life.”
This speaks closely to Yanco’s character, Chiappini said, with his personality being genuinely charismatic, as the first person to always step up to help.
“This just goes to show you that there’s people in crisis… and my guys are willing to be out there and hands on, and not a lot of people would do that,” Chiappini said.
