Category: Awareness
Toddlers revived with Narcan after fentanyl exposure; mother & boyfriend charged
Read the article and watch the video on the WRAL TV News website.
Raleigh police arrested mother Vinus Humphreys and her boyfriend Tyrone Bannerman on felony child abuse charges after her twin 22-month-old children were exposed to fentanyl inside their apartment.
Raleigh police arrested a mother and her boyfriend for child abuse after they said her twin toddlers were exposed to fentanyl inside their apartment.
Vinus Humphreys, 25, and Tyrone Bannerman, 28, are both facing two counts of felony child abuse. Raleigh police responded after 8 p.m. Monday to a home on Lake Hills Drive to a report of an unresponsive child.
EMS was already on scene providing medical aid to a 22-month-old child when, shortly after, the child’s twin also became unresponsive.
First responders administered Narcan to both children and took them to the hospital for further treatment. Their condition is considered stable and are expected to survive.
Narcan is is a medicine that can help people who are overdosing on an opioid.
Raleigh police found drugs, drug paraphernalia and a firearm inside the home, resulting in more charges for Bannerman, including:
- Trafficking opium/heroin
- Manufacturer of Schedule II controlled substance
- Misdemeanor possession of marijuana
The incident raised concerns for Barb Walsh, the executive director of the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina. The number of children younger than the age of 5 dying from fentanyl is on the rise. According to the North Carolina Office of the Medical Examiner, 29 children younger than 5 year old died from fentanyl between 2017 and 2022, with 72% of those deaths occurring in 2021 and 2022.
“It breaks my heart,” Walsh said. “I hate to use the word overdosing with a two-year-old because they didn’t know what they were taking.”
Walsh lost her 24-year-old daughter in 2021 to an unintentional fentanyl exposure when a toxic amount of it was in a water bottle. It’s why she’s so involved in advocating for change so other families don’t have to experience this pain.
“We’re making progress,” Walsh said. “That’s all we can hope for.”
Earlier this year, Gov. Josh Stein signed a new law creating new criminal offenses for exposing a child to a controlled substance.
Walsh said it goes much further than the laws in place now.
“They get child abuse or child neglect,” Walsh said. “The new law will be a felony even if they ingest it and are OK. That will save someone else’s life.”
Walsh said the new law is a lot more specific compared to the broader charge of child abuse. However, Humphreys and Bannerman won’t be charged under the new law. While Stein signed it into law in July, it won’t become effective until Dec. 1, which is exactly four weeks after Humphreys’ twins were exposed to fentanyl.
“People who endanger a child with a harmful substance like fentanyl should be held accountable for their actions,” Walsh said. “It will lead to lives being saved. That’s the goal. We want lives saved.”
Humphreys and Bannerman are due in court for their first appearances Wednesday afternoon in Wake County. Authorities are holding both of them without bond.
18 arrested in Carteret “Operation Find Out” drug crackdown
Read the original article on the Carteret County News-Times website.
CARTERET COUNTY — Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck announced the arrest of 18 suspects that are facing 146 felony charges in round one of “Operation Find Out.” According to Buck, the arrests were the result of a months-long operation by the sheriff’s office carried out through undercover purchases, with charges ranging from possession to trafficking.
Buck said the arrests have come with bond amounts as high as $10 million. At least 30 more suspects will be arrested as part of the operation in the coming weeks, he said during a Wednesday press conference.
“The message is clear – sell drugs in Carteret County and you’ll find out,” Buck said. ”You’ll find out that you’ll be arrested, taken to jail, and likely depending on your charges given a high bond to keep you in jail. You’ll be strictly prosecuted and many of you will ultimately find yourselves serving prison time.”
Buck said his team of detectives has done “tremendous work” in taking drug dealers off the streets. He said Carteret County District Attorney Matt Wareham and Assistant District Attorney David Spence have also been critical partners in their efforts.
“The work they have done over the years has made a major impact on our county and our work continues,” Buck said.
Wareham warned that the DA’s office will seek tough sentences for drug-related crimes.
“To those folks who sell drugs, who traffic in drugs, who live off others misery, we will prosecute you. We will seek tough enforcement, we will seek long prison sentences,” Wareham remarked.
Buck noted that Carteret County leads the state in prosecuting death by distribution cases.
“If you want to go to prison for killing someone over something as stupid, foolish and needless as selling dope, then keep on and find out,” Buck commented.
Buck noted that drug overdose deaths in Carteret County have fallen from 36 in 2020 to only five this year.
“We were having a terrible problem with Fentanyl for some time, and it seems like we’re not dealing with as much as we had been in the past,” he said.
For those addicted to drugs, Buck said the county is willing to offer help.
Brooke Lane, who heads up the Carteret County Post Overdose Response Team, echoed Buck’s remarks.
“There is help out there. You don’t have to end up in our county jail, you don’t have to end up part of this operation,” she commented.
October Hometown Hero: Annie Brown
Read the original article and watch the video on the WITN TV News website.
CARTERET COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) – After losing her 26-year-old son, Tyler Dees, to fentanyl in 2022, Annie Brown of Carteret County has turned unimaginable grief into a powerful mission of hope and healing for others battling addiction.
Dees, a Carteret County native, was known for his love of fishing, making lures, and spending time with friends and family. His mother says his death came after years of struggling with mental health issues.
“I got the call the next day from his dad that he was gone,” Brown said. “I knew he was going to pass away before I moved back from California, I just didn’t know it would happen right before the holidays. He’s at peace right now with all the demons he was battling. He was diagnosed at a very early age with depression.”
Brown says her son’s death was not an isolated tragedy.
Continue reading “October Hometown Hero: Annie Brown”From revival to recovery: Some paramedics are changing the front line of addiction care
Read the original article on the North Carolina Health News website.
By Rachel Crumpler
A life lost in Buncombe County in 2022 still weighs on — and motivates — Shuchin Shukla, a family physician who specializes in addiction medicine.
A community paramedic had responded to an overdose involving a person recently released from jail. After reviving them, the paramedic told the patient about a soon-to-launch program that would start people on a medication used to treat opioid addiction after an overdose.
“That would be amazing if you had it now, I would like to start now,” the patient said, according to a shift note of the encounter.
But the program was still 10 days from launch.
Soon after, the person used again, experienced a second overdose and went into cardiac arrest. They later died at the hospital.
“For the team working on this, the case hit home that every moment of every day matters for patients. At any minute, they’re at risk of dying or having an overdose,” Shukla said. “That’s how critical this is.”
For months, Shukla had been working with Buncombe County Emergency Medical Services to launch Buncombe Bridge to Care, a project to equip paramedics to administer buprenorphine — a medication proven to ease opioid withdrawal symptoms, reduce cravings and support long-term recovery for people with opioid use disorder — when responding to overdoses or others in the community struggling with addiction.
Continue reading “From revival to recovery: Some paramedics are changing the front line of addiction care”“Every life is worth saving”: How a UNC researcher’s website is connecting communities to naloxone
Read the original article and watch the video on the WRAL News website.
Delesha Carpenter’s personal tragedy has fueled her mission to combat opioid overdoses through increased naloxone access. Her new website with UNC maps naloxone availability across NC’s 100 counties.
Delesha Carpenter began her career as a researcher focused on pediatrics. A little over seven years ago, her path took an unexpected turn following the deaths of two close friends.
“A lot of people who get into this field, it’s personal,” Carpenter said. “I lost two friends within two weeks of each other to opioid overdoses. That really inspired me to increase access to naloxone.”
The researcher and professor with the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy recently launched NalxoneNearMe.org. The website features an interactive map of all 100 North Carolina counties, rating them based on the number of naloxone distribution services available.
Durham County is tied with Mecklenburg County as the highest rated counties on the map with a score of 88. Wake County wasn’t far behind with a score of 77.
Carpenter told WRAL the Naloxone Availability Scores are based on the level of availability of no-cost naloxone and pharmacies that sell naloxone in each county.
Naloxone distribution resources are categorized into 14 types, including syringe service programs, EMS, harm reduction organizations, health departments, pharmacies and healthcare providers.
“The highest score a county can receive is 100, which would mean that all 14 naloxone sources included in the Naloxone Availability Score are present in that county,” Carpenter explained. “If a county had one harm reduction program in the county, they would get the same amount of ‘credit’ toward the score as a county that had two or three reduction programs.”
Increased naloxone use and availability are among the efforts researchers say have contributed to a reduction in opioid overdose deaths in recent years.
WRAL investigated how the medication works when taking viewers inside the human body to reveal the way naloxone fights against opioid overdoses.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reported more than 41,500 North Carolinians died from overdoses between 2000-2023.
As of the latest data available from 2024, overdose deaths decreased by approximately 32% from the year prior.
“One thing is everybody’s life is worth saving. It is important to carry naloxone, especially if you’re going to be in situations where people are going to be using drugs, you never know what is in the drugs that you’re using,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter said increasing the availability of medications for opioid use, such as buprenorphine and methadone, would also help reduce overdose fatalities.
“Other resources that people should be aware of, and one that’s linked on our website, is Naloxone Saves. Ours tells you what types of sources are available, but you can go to the Naloxone Saves website and find the actual pharmacies that carry and stock naloxone, or find your health department and whether it’s distributing naloxone,” Carpenter added.
Naloxone will not harm someone who hasn’t taken an opioid, so it is recommended even when it is unclear what kind of drug a person has taken.
More than one dose may be needed because some opioids, like fentanyl, can take a stronger hold on the opioid receptors.
OCME Reports Update
The North Carolina Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) has published a new set of reports, visit the OCME reports page to view the new reports.
HIDDEN DANGER: As fentanyl takes over opioids, innocent victims fall prey
Read the original article on the Daily Record website.
Theresa Mathewson and Susan Burkhart never asked for this. They never asked for their mission in life to be educating others about the dangers of fentanyl, but after they both lost a child to fentanyl poisonings that’s what they’re doing.
And now — that drug they’re warning others about — is popping up in all kinds of places and hurting all kinds of people, including the innocent.
It was added to the percocet pills that killed Mathewson’s son and Burkhart’s granddaughter. Dunn police found it in pills that looked like Flintstones vitamins. Sampson County medical workers found it in cigarettes. It was even in the bottle of water that killed Sophia Walsh, whose mother leads the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.
“Fentanyl is everywhere,” Lt. Patrice Bogertey, of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, told The Daily Record in April. “Fentanyl is commonly mixed with heroin, cocaine, meth, and other narcotics to enhance their effects. It is available in various forms, including nasal sprays, liquids, pills, and powders.”
Dealers have hidden it in liquid eye drops and Advil liquid gel pills, in candy and in edibles.
Continue reading “HIDDEN DANGER: As fentanyl takes over opioids, innocent victims fall prey”Father turns son’s overdose tragedy into advocacy as North Carolina overdose deaths drop
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – What started as a normal day for UNCW student Alex Bradford ended in tragedy, but his father’s mission to honor his memory comes at a time with encouraging statistics about North Carolina’s fight against the overdose crisis.
“I would say by far that was the worst day of my life,” said Jeremy Bradford, Alex’s father.
Alex died in 2023 from an overdose, a life full of promise that became part of a nationwide statistic.
Jeremy Bradford heard the words no parent is ever prepared to hear.
“Because of the distance between Spring Lake and Wilmington, we didn’t initially find out. We found out through social media. Somebody texted my wife and said, ‘Hey the police and ambulance are at the boys’ apartment complex. I think something’s wrong with Alex,” Bradford said.
Jeremy says his son was having a tough day and purchased what he thought was a Percocet pill, but it was actually straight fentanyl. That was two years ago.
Now in North Carolina, the state health department reports overdose deaths are trending down.
Each day in 2023, 12 North Carolinians died from drug overdoses. But in 2024, that number decreased to 8.
Locally, numbers presented to the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners in April showed emergency room visits from overdoses decreased from 110 in 2023 to 98 in 2024.
“For the first time in over 20 years of studying this, I actually am speechless,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, a street drug expert at UNC-Chapel Hill, when asked about drug trends moving forward.
He also says trends show that most overdose deaths are between Gen X and millennials.
“What you see with Gen Z is a really different substance use pattern that’s more Psilocybin, more marijuana, a little more ketamine and ecstasy. And so they have watched their parents and their grandparents’ generations struggle with opioids and have decided that’s not the drug of choice for that generation,” said Dasgupta.
Dasgupta says there are several reasons overdose deaths are declining.
“I think we can understand the decline in overdoses in three ways. One, the drug supply is changing. Number two, people’s behaviors are changing. And number three, the demographics of who is using opioids is also changing,” Dasgupta said.
And a common activity seen in college students and drug use is sharing pills. But he says this is also on the decline.
“We see a lot less of that sharing behavior now. And that’s kind of across the board, and the problem now is not really with the prescription opioid and pills,” said Dasgupta. “Most mortalities are coming from powdered substances.”
But Jeremy Bradford believes advocacy and awareness play a role in the decline, too.
That’s why he created the 2 Out Rally Foundation to educate and advocate for mental health and empower individuals impacted by illicit fentanyl use.
They host events and advertise at places like baseball games to help parents and kids educate themselves.
“It’s been very therapeutic for our mental health to put pain to purpose. And our purpose now is to tell Alex’s story and ensure no other parent has to go through this. I’m a member of a club I never wanted to be a part of. And I don’t like new members,” Bradford said.
Bradford hopes that the death of his son will help save the lives of others, and overdose deaths will continue to decline.
“So that when it gets tough, when it is the bottom of the ninth and there are two outs, you’re not out of the game,” said Jeremy Bradford. “There’s still plenty of life to live and to move on. And you don’t need to result to a negative action that could end up taking your life.”
Newport woman sentenced for 2nd-degree murder
Read the original article on the WNCT TV9 website.
BEAUFORT, N.C. (WNCT) — Amanda Alice Blanton, 36, of Newport, pled guilty to 2nd degree murder in the death of Daniel Andrew Brisson, 46, also of Newport, and has been sentenced to 238-298 months in the Department of Adult Correction during the most recent term of Carteret County Criminal Superior Court.
The case was investigated by the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office, and the lead investigator was Courtney Howell. Assistant District Attorney David L. Spence prosecuted the case and Resident Superior Court Judge Clint Rowe presided over the matter.