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It’s been over a year since Chris and Laura Didier found their 17-year-old son, Zack, lying on his desk at home near Sacramento, California.
Their son “looked asleep. When I approached him, I knew something was terribly wrong,” his father, Chris Didier, told Fox News on December 27, 2020. I remembered the moment I entered my son’s room on the day.
“I just felt something dark and something empty — and that bothers me,” he said.
Fearing the worst, Didier did what his father did — he tried to bring Zack back into consciousness.
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Didier, a former U.S. military member, used CPR training to try to revive Zack, shouting to his other son, Sam, to call 911.
After a while, the Medic arrived and took over the rescue operation.
It was about 10 minutes later that they realized that there was nothing more they could do for teenagers. Dad Chris Didier remembered what happened next.
“I didn’t accept it. I said’it’s unacceptable’,” he said. “So I resumed CPR and fought as hard as I could to prevent losses, and after a while, one of the responders took me away from Zack.”
“And when it stopped,” the affected father added.
“I know what fentanyl is, but how does it get into my house?”
Chris Didier said the coroner had arrived at his house to inspect Zack’s room for several hours.
“They said,’Chris, this is a real mystery,'” he said. “We obviously want to know what happened if someone died, with obvious clues.”
Investigators told Didier that there are two possible causes of Zack’s death: natural causes or fentanyl.
“I know what fentanyl is, but how does it get into my house?” Chris Didier asked. “My child is in my house. He is not in danger of the world. How does he put it in his room? How does it get into his body? Do you? “
Chris and Laura soon learned that their son bought what he thought was a Percoset pill from someone at Snap Chat. Instead, he ended up with a counterfeit pill made of fentanyl.
“We had never heard of counterfeit pills,” said Zack’s mother, Laura Didier.
“I’ve never heard of a drug dealer preying on young people through social media apps. I didn’t know this, nor did my neighbors, friends, or Zack’s classmates know. This was happening. “
“Social media is a very popular platform. You can always get what you like on social media, but I didn’t know that. [this] It was happening. “
Both her and her husband were shocked to learn that their son, Zack, could get contaminated pills on social media very easily.
“All the other parents we know, all of his football team, all of those friends-all of us heard of counterfeit prescription drugs that only contain fentanyl as an agent. It never happened, “Chris Didier told Fox News.
“I also learned that social media is a very popular platform. You can always get what you like on social media, but I never thought it was happening.”
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Synthetic opioids, primarily illegally produced fentanyl, are a major cause of death from overdose in the United States, especially teenagers.
According to a survey released in April by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), fentanyl-related deaths in adolescents aged 14 to 18 are increasing year by year, with teenage adolescent deaths last year alone. It is equivalent to 77%.
“One-time users are not tolerant and can die because they don’t know what they’re taking,” said Dr. Olivia Ray Wright, an expert in family medicine and adolescent addiction in Vancouver, Washington. The highest. ” She told Fox News.
Shocking report
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a shocking report last November. This indicates that more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States during the 12 months to April 2021. This is an increase of almost 30%. From the same time a year ago.
According to one doctor, overdose began to increase when heroin began to mix with fentanyl as a filler to push out more products.
Three in four Americans who died during that period were killed by synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl. That number continues to grow, partly due in part to the number of young people like Zack Didier who didn’t know what they were taking.
Dr. Wright said overdose began to increase when heroin began to mix with fentanyl as a filler to push out more products.
“It was all happening in the northeast, and the reason was that it just started to mix with the heroine,” she said. “East coast heroin tends to come from China, which was in the form of a really easy-to-mix white powder. [with] Fentanyl. “
Wright added that the West Coast had no problems until the last decade, when production of a particular type of heroin known as China White slowed.
“When China first started to become a problem, there was a lot of pressure from the United States about this,” she said.
“They stop making it as much, but what they do is that they send precursors. [base chemical compounds] It was distributed to Mexico, and now … in the United States, and proceeded to the West Coast. ”
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Addiction experts also said, “If prescription opioids are no longer available, [the drug dealers] Looking for something else to immerse people in, fentanyl turned out to be a great way to do that. ”
She went on to say, “It started to be supplied to the supply, mixed with other medicines, and now on its own, and mostly in the form of tablets.”
Trying to help others
After Zack’s death, Laura and Chris Didier used their experience to inform other parents about the dangers of counterfeit pills and the public drug market on social media.
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“If we knew about this issue-if we saw a news report about this, or if we saw a program at our school about this … we could have had this particular conversation. “Laura Didier said.
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She also does not believe in deception if she has seen anything on social media “if we could talk to beautiful and lively children”. What they sell is not what they are telling you. ‘”
The mom concluded, “I wish I knew it had to be a conversation.”