By Spencer Sterritt

Crisis-stricken Nanaimo grieves on Int’l Overdose Awareness Day

Aug 31, 2018 | 4:34 PM

NANAIMO — Grieving family members and frontline emergency staff gathered to remember lost loved ones in Nanaimo for International Overdose Awareness Day.

Roughly 40 people came together at Maffeo Sutton Park Friday afternoon to share their stories and preach various messages about how to get through the ongoing overdose crisis.

“We need to stick together and hopefully we can make a difference,” Dallas Forbes told the crowd.

Her husband passed away roughly two years ago after a year of being clean of his addiction. Forbes was six-weeks pregnant when he died.

“I never thought he would pass away,” she told NanaimoNewsNOW. “We was left by somebody and because of the laws they were obviously afraid to call it in. So they just left him. He was there in a vehicle for two days before he was found.”

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She said there needs to be more programs in place to provide continual support for those battling their demons.

“You’re not going to stop anybody from using. You just need to support them and basically help them stay alive. And if they do decide one day to get help, that’s up to them. You can’t force them.”

Forbes said she was thankful for community support as she and her family battled with the loss. Specifically, she said she couldn’t have survived the “crushing” last 18 months without her best friend Chelsea Liebrecht.

Liebrecht herself recently suffered a loss due to the overdose crisis. Her partner passed away just two weeks ago when he was on a two-week waiting list to enter into an addiction treatment program in Alberta after being released from jail.

“He thought he’d have one last hurrah before he went into treatment,” she said as the tears she’d held back all day started to flow. “That one last hurrah was the end of his life and the end of my daughts future of getting to know her dad.”

Liebrecht said speaking with grieving parents and sharing her story for International Overdose Awareness Day is helping her accept what’s happened, though it hasn’t been easy.

The day was held as Nanaimo is in the midst of an overdose advisory issued by Island Health following a terrible week of overdoses, including one fatality.

The alert was quickly circulated through the community with tips about how to avoid overdoses, such as taking a small sample of drugs before using the whole amount, making sure users are with someone when they take drugs and to always have naloxone available.

Medical health officer Dr. Paul Hasselback said he’s heard from frontline workers, many of whom were at the event in Nanaimo, that the advisory was taken seriously by many users.

“The good news is we’re seeing lots of interaction so the message got out quickly. And if we look at emergency departments, things seem to have lightened up.”

Hasselback said emergency responders and organizations aren’t seeing the same grievous situations they were earlier this week, which prompted the overdose advisory.

However, it doesn’t mean drugs users in Nanaimo, Oceanside and the Alberni Valley are clear of the danger.

“Knowing something about the way drug distribution networks, I don’t believe this is cleared through the system at this point in time,” Hasselback said.

By the end of July, 20 people had fatalty overdosed in Nanaimo.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit