“He just really had a special heart,” Union County resident Linda Hibbets said.
Hibbets, raised her grandson, 18-year-old Brian Terrano. He grew up loving adventures, sports, and anything to do with Gatlinburg. After a trip there, the next morning he was supposed to go to school.
“I told my husband to help me get him off the bed, and I did CPR, I’m an RN, and I couldn’t save my grandson and that was really hard,” Hibbets said. “I’ve saved others, but I couldn’t save him, he was gone.”
It’s a story UCSO Lieutenant James Maye has heard too often.
Three years ago, Sophia Walsh was returning home after a fun weekend with friends river rafting in Boone.
On the drive back, she stopped at an acquaintance’s house to use the bathroom and get something to drink. An innocent act that had deadly consequences.
The water bottle she found in the refrigerator was poisoned with a dissolved fentanyl pill, according to investigators. An autopsy report found Walsh had 8.4 nanograms of fentanyl in her system, enough to kill four people.
Walsh overdosed on the drug. She was 24 years old.
TRAVIS LONG • TLONG@NEWSOBSERVER.COM Samantha Brawley, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, shows off the NARCAN nasal sprays and Fentanyl test strips that she carries while traveling in and around the Cherokee Indian Reservation where she offers support to people struggling with addiction. Ten percent of the tribe’s members received a substance-abuse diagnosis in 2012, the Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority reported in 2017.
Her family and friends remember the Apex High School and Appalachian State graduate as a passionate foodie, chef and nature lover, often photographing animals, plants and flowers.
“This individual did not have naloxone in their home and did not call 911,” said her mother, Barbara, in an interview. “It was not Sophia’s choice to die, and it was not her choice to ingest fentanyl.”
Since her daughter’s death, Barbara Walsh, has been raising awareness about fentanyl emergencies and working to increase the availability of the nasal spray drug naloxone, or Narcan, which reverses a drug overdose in two minutes. Her organization, Fentanyl Victims of North Carolina, highlights the many young people and their families affected by losses like her own.
Some leaders and advocates say the limited access to life-saving medication in schools should be expanded. Beyond school resource officers, advocates say, teachers, staff, school nurses and even students should have access to and be trained to administer the drug in case of an emergency.
“What is happening today is different than what happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. It’s different than when I grew up,” Walsh said. “We were able to experiment and live. Today, that’s not always the case. The stigma some people have about (drugs) is from another era.”
In Wake County, 1,499 people died from drug emergencies from 2013 to 2023, according to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics. Of that number, 867 — or 58% of the deaths — involved fentanyl. Statewide, more than 36,000 people died from drug misuse from 2000-22.
The synthetic opioid created in the 1960s is often prescribed for pain, and studies show it is 100 times more powerful than morphine. Many young people encounter fentanyl when experimenting with marijuana, Adderall, heroin, cocaine or other pills like ecstasy or Xanax.
Sophomore Alyssa Price said she lost two friends to overdoses, and now she’s raising funds to provide free Narcan to students.
An NC State student is raising funds to help fight overdoses on campus.
Sophomore Alyssa Price said she lost two friends to overdoses, so she wanted to do something to help save others.
That’s why she is raising funds to provide Narcan – a medicine that reverses opioid overdose – free to students.
The university has increased resources after 14 students deaths, including two fatal overdoses, during the 2022-23 school year.
Price said this is one area where she felt she could do more.
“They created a bunch of preventative measures last year,” Price said. “But we did not have the part that was, ‘What if it happened?'”
She said she’s trying to help students be more prepared – and proactive – in the case of an emergency.
NC State prevention services does provide free Narcan kits to any campus community member – upon request. The university said it has distributed 744 kits throughout the past two years.
Price started a GofundMe to help raise money for her free Narcan initiative.
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:
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.
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Dozens of new laws are now in effect in North Carolina as of Dec 1.
Some deal with stricter fines for drug traffickers, while others deal with election law. WECT News took a closer look at two of them.
Senate Bill 41
Part of Senate Bill 41, introduced by State Senator Danny Britt Jr., is now in effect in North Carolina. The part of the law now in effect allows concealed carry permit holders to bring firearms to places of worship that also have schools.
“An act to increase the fine imposed on persons convicted of trafficking in heroin, fentanyl, or carfentanil” will increase the fines for people convicted of drug trafficking who have between 4-14 grams of the substance on them.
The fine increase is from $50,000 to $500,000. That’s a 900% increase.
Barbara Walsh lost her daughter, Sophia, to fentanyl poisoning at just 24 years old. Sophia died after drinking fentanyl from a glass of water, but the family didn’t find that out until months after her death.
Walsh says she hopes the new law with an increased fine will be enough to curb traffickers from selling or distributing the lethal drug.
“I think that is a deterrent for people to think twice about trafficking fentanyl, and maybe it will save somebody’s life,” Walsh said.
While the new law can’t bring back her daughter, she hopes it could save others’ lives in the future.
“We’re paying it forward for unfortunately the eight people who die every day from fentanyl in North Carolina,” Walsh said.
The DEA reports that just one gram of fentanyl can kill 500 people.
Walsh founded the non-profit, Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, after her daughter’s death. She works with families across the state who have lost a loved one to fentanyl and encourages those who want support to join.
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 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.
Changes to a North Carolina law make it easier to prosecute people who distribute drugs, including fentanyl, if the drug user dies
Overview:
Carolina Public Press interviewed six parents of children who died and the partner of a man who did as well. Fentanyl, a powerful narcotic painkiller, was involved in each death. Often, those close to the victims reported, prosecutors declined to bring charges for death by distribution, saying the evidence was not strong enough.
Under a state law that takes effect next month, anyone who provides certain drugs to a person who dies after taking them may be prosecuted for second-degree murder — whether they received money for the drugs or shared them freely.
“Death by distribution” first became a crime in North Carolina in 2019. Originally, the law applied only to people who got paid for drugs that later proved fatal. In September, legislators expanded the law’s reach to include anyone who provides certain drugs, including fentanyl, when those drugs result in an overdose death.
Carolina Public Press interviewed six parents of children who died and the partner of a man who died as well. Fentanyl, a powerful narcotic painkiller, was involved in each death. Most of the families reported that prosecutors declined to bring charges for death by distribution, saying that the evidence was not strong enough.
The family members, as well as people who study drug use or work to combat it, are divided over whether the law’s approach is good or bad. Those in favor described death by distribution charges as essential to bring justice in fentanyl death cases. Critics argued that the strategy could unjustly criminalize and disproportionately affect substance users and people of color.
SANFORD, N.C. (WNCN) — A father and son were arrested and charged with trafficking opioids after a traffic stop Thursday.
Lee County sheriff’s deputies made the traffic stop on Greenwood Road which is about 8 miles south of Sanford as part of an active drug investigation, the sheriff’s office said.
Deputies found about 2.2 pounds of fentanyl in the vehicle, according to the sheriff’s office.
Robert Bernard Fox Sr., 54, and his son, Robert Bernard Fox II, 23, were arrested and both charged with the following:
Trafficking Opioid by Transport,
Trafficking Opioid by Possession,
Possess with Intent to Sell and Deliver Schedule II Controlled Substance,
Maintaining a Vehicle for the Sale of Narcotics, and
Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.
The pair were brought before a Lee County Magistrate and were issued $250,000 secured bonds.
As a result of this traffic stop, narcotics agents, assisted by the Sanford Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, executed a search warrant in the 800 block of McKenzie Park Drive.
During the search warrant, agents found Shondell Rasheed Bethea, 25, inside the residence.
Bethea was wanted for failing to appear in court on charges of possessing with intent to sell and deliver methamphetamine, larceny of a motor vehicle, and two counts of breaking and entering.
Bethea was found to be in possession of two firearms, one of which was entered stolen by the Sanford Police Department, the sheriff’s office said.
