Hawai‘i Police Department
Puna Patrol
Captain Scott Amaral
Phone: (808) 965-2716
Media Release
For his quick-thinking efforts that saved a woman’s life, Officer Dallas Arce was honored as Officer of the Month for July 2022 by the Aloha Exchange Club of East Hawai‘i during a ceremony in Hilo on Thursday, October 27, 2022.
Assigned to the Puna District, Officer Arce has proven himself as a hard-working and dedicated officer in the two years since he joined the department.
In the early morning hours of Monday, June 27, 2022, Officer Arce conducted a welfare check on a woman who reportedly overdosed on prescription medication. Arriving on scene before other first responders, Officer Arce and his beat partner found the unresponsive woman with prescription pills gathered together within her arm’s reach. Officers ascertained that earlier the woman was involved in a domestic dispute during which she had left the residence yelling that she wanted to kill herself.
Remembering his Hawaii Police Department Naloxone, (commonly known as Narcan), training Officer Arce ran to his patrol vehicle and obtained two doses of the life-saving spray. Knowing that time was of the essence, he deployed both doses into the woman’s nose resulting in her immediately starting to breathe and cough. As the Narcan’s effects continued to help the woman, Hawai‘i Fire Department medical personnel were able to stabilize her condition and transport her to the Hilo Medical Center for treatment.
Without Officer Arce’s quick and confident actions, a family might be without a daughter today.
Every month the Aloha Exchange Club of East Hawai‘i honors a police officer in East Hawaii as their officer of the month. Officers are nominated by their supervisors from the police districts in Area I, including Hāmākua, North Hilo, South Hilo, and Puna, and a winner is selected. All officers selected for Officer of the Month are eligible to be selected as the Aloha Exchange Club of East Hawai‘i Officer of the Year.
Pictured: James Sanborn of the Aloha Exchange Club of East Hawai‘i and Officer Dallas Arce.
