I have read most of the memorials and have not seen Fentanyl as a drug used here. I had never heard of this until my son died from it. It is 1000 times more powerful than morphine. It is a pain medication that only dying patients use on their skin and it is time released. But my son ingested it and it stopped his heart. Since this happened to my son, I have heard of several deaths in my state from this drug.
My son was always trying to live on the wild side, which I could not understand because he did not come from that type of home. Danny was my only son and the baby. He has an older sister who has been devastated by his death, just like me and the rest of his family. He was very loving and outgoing. But for whatever reason, I am still trying to understand, he got involved with alcohol and drugs. I forced him into rehab three times before he was 18. After 18 I could not do anything but watch him destroy himself. He would quit drinking and using for a time, and then start again. He never would admit to me that he did drugs. He would say, "Mom I'm an alcoholic, I don't do drugs," but would tell me he wasn't ready to get sober...
He was in the army for three years, and when he got out he came back to Ohio. He started hanging around a group of people that I knew were trouble and slowly the pattern began again. Danny was out with some friends one night and stopped by his sister's apartment to tell her that he was going to a girl's apartment across from her that he had met and would be back later. He didn't come home that night and I had been trying to call him on his cell phone all the next morning, then I got a call from the police. They were at my daughter's apartment and I could hear her screaming in the background before they could even tell me that my son was dead and I instantly knew it was Danny. They said your son is deceased and it appears to be an overdose. To make a long story short he died from ingesting a fentanyl patch. They found the empty wrapper and the girl he was with said she had seen him eat it.
It has been almost 4 years and I still cannot accept his death. I just go through the motions of living I think. He left behind a devastated family including his son who was only 8 months old at the time. I don't understand why this happened or how.
Debbie Preece