I was utterly amazed at the questions people plied me with not long after Dominic’s accident.
They ranged from digging for details about what happened (when we ourselves were still unsure) to ridiculous requests for when I’d be returning to my previous responsibilities in a local ministry.
Since then, many of my bereaved parent friends have shared even more questions that have been lobbed at them across tables, across rooms and in the grocery store.
Recently there was a post in our group that generated so many excellent answers to these kinds of questions, I asked permission to reprint them here (without names, of course!).
So here they are, good answers to hard (or inappropriate or just plain ridiculous) questions:
Officials seized enough of the drug to kill every person in North Carolina more than two times over.
IREDELL COUNTY, N.C. — Two people are in jail after the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office seized almost 120 pounds of suspected fentanyl mixed with cocaine during a traffic stop on Sunday.
The two people, one from Mexico and the other from New Mexico were traveling on I-77 from Charlotte to Philadelphia in a tractor-trailer when they were stopped by the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office Interstate Criminal Enforcement Team (ICE) for a traffic violation.
During the traffic stop, ICSO K-9 Groot indicated the presence of narcotics in the tractor-trailer. After searching the vehicle, deputies located 120 lbs of suspected fentanyl mixed with cocaine, which has a street value of $3.75 million.
Deputies said that they seized enough of the drug to kill every person in the entire state of North Carolina – two and a half times over.
On September 25, 1993 Barbara Walsh sat down with the DEA for an interview. The DEA was interested in hearing Barbara’s story about how Sophia died and how Barbara came to start the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.
Fatal overdoses in North Carolina had finally started to decline.
After steadily rising for years, deaths dropped by 7% in 2018, despite the growing prevalence of fentanyl, an opioid even more potent and deadly than heroine.
The state had aggressively invested in fighting the opioid crisis — it expanded access to evidence-based treatment, sent Narcan to at-risk areas and reduced medical dispensing of opioids.
Low overdose numbers in 2019 seemed to confirm the efforts were paying off.
People in the NC Department of Health and Human Services started believing it was possible to meet a goal they had set back in 2016: to cut the expected overdoses in 2024 by 20%.
“There was a lot of hope in those two years before the pandemic,” said Mary Beth Cox, a substance use epidemiologist DHHS.
Then COVID-19 hit.
“Who knows where we would have been if the pandemic hadn’t happened?” Cox said.
INCREASED ISOLATION, DISAPPEARING TREATMENT AND SUPPORT GROUPS
Loneliness and social isolation became more common. It became harder to send Narcan out into the community. Support groups and treatment centers transitioned online.
“You can do group therapy on the phone or in video, but it’s still not true connection,” said Ellen Stroud, who directs addiction and management operations for the state’s opioid response. “And that’s really a huge part of recovery.”
Disturbing data began emerging.
In the first year of the pandemic, fatal overdoses in the state shot up by 40%. In 2021, deaths increased by an additional 22%.
GASTONIA, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — There are a lot of families hurting in North Carolina.
The state has seen 16,000 killed from fentanyl this year through July alone, according to the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.
That’s 16,000 families missing a loved one because of a growing nationwide fentanyl epidemic. Tracy Sauderson-Ross wishes she would have been home back on Sept. 26, 2022, when her 16-year-old daughter, Abi, was dealing with leg pain and Abi’s boyfriend tried to help.
“He decided to call a buddy of his to get a Percocet,” described Saunderson-Ross. “She took half of the Percocet, it was a bar, and it was 36 nanograms of fentanyl, and she passed away in the middle of the night.”
Marshall Abbott was out with friends on June 30, 2022, the day before his 30th birthday. A friend he was with bought something. The family still doesn’t know what it was, but they know a loving father didn’t wake up.
“Marshall had 72 nanograms of fentanyl in his system,” said Elizabeth Abernathy. “He didn’t stand a chance. He was gone before he even crawled into the bed.”
A North Carolina woman faces charges for the death of another person, but no weapon or violent act was involved.
The Henderson County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that Heather Marie Maybin, 37, of Hendersonville, was charged Monday with felony death by distribution.
Officials said the charge is a result of an overdose death that happened on Feb. 7, but did not release the name of the victim.
“The months-long investigation revealed Maybin as the source of supply Fentanyl that resulted in the death of at least one individual,” officials said.
They said Maybin is being held at the Henderson County Detention Center on a $75,000.00 bond.
A 26-year-old was taken to Iredell Memorial Hospital due to a drug overdose and later died, deputies said.
STATESVILLE, N.C. (WBTV) – A deadly 2022 fentanyl overdose in Iredell County has led to charges being filed more than a year later.
Deputies were called to Hickory Highway in Statesville on July 23, 2022, for a possible drug overdose, according to the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office.
A 26-year-old was taken to Iredell Memorial Hospital due to a drug overdose and later died, deputies said.
During the investigation, 26-year-old Dakoda Michael Drake, of Statesville, was identified as the person who provided fentanyl to the victim, according to the sheriff’s office.
“After months of waiting, the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office recently received the Toxicology Report indicating the victim’s cause of death was confirmed as a Fentanyl overdose,” a news release stated.
An arrest warrant was obtained for Drake and he was arrested on Nov. 24 for felony death by distribution, deputies said.
He was given a $350,000 secured bond on this charge.
A vending machine stocked with free Narcan — a life-saving opioid reversal nasal spray — will now sit inside the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, available for use 24/7.
The installment, tucked next to a Coca-Cola vending machine in the Detention Center’s lobby, comes after a 20% increase in fentanyl overdoses reported by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Fentanyl — an opioid often laced in other drugs, like pain pills, or distributed on its own — is 100 times more potent than morphine, and even a small amount of it can be deadly.
As it becomes easily available — routinely popping up in the detention center, on streets and even in schools — Sheriff Garry McFadden hopes to make access to Narcan as easy as possible.
“We want to encourage all people, whether they personally use substances or not, to carry the life-saving drug,” wrote MCSO Public Information Officer Bradley Smith.
Naloxone, the fast-acting medicine in Narcan that reverses an opioid overdose, is considered safe to use even if drug use is suspected but later found to not be the case. Earlier this year, federal regulators took action to make 4 mg Narcan nasal spray available over-the-counter without a prescription for about $50.
In collaboration with Carolinas CARE Partnership Rx ACE (CCP), McFadden said offering the drug will be “a pivotal step in our efforts to combat the ongoing fentanyl crisis.”
A trial in federal court last week stemming from the overdose of a 23-year-old Raleigh man exposed the inner workings of a drug-dealing duo and their college-student clients.
The weekend of March 4, 2023, was a big one in the Triangle.
Big for thousands of students and alums because longtime basketball rivals Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were facing off. Big for crowded restaurants and bars that had the Saturday night game in UNC’s Dean Dome on their wide-screen TVs.
And big for Cye Frasier and his girlfriend, Carlisa Allen, who expected to bring in $10,000 in drug sales that weekend from their primary customer base: college students.
That weekend was the first time Josh Zinner, a former UNC-Wilmington student from Raleigh, purchased directly from Frasier and Allen, according to testimony last week in federal court. His roommate, a former UNC-Chapel Hill student and Phi Gamma Delta member, referred him to Frasier.
