WADSWORTH, Ohio — Kelly Woolsey cried and held her son close before he left their Wadsworth home the night of Sept. 27.
Eric Ward wasn’t heading to college or boot camp or surgery. He was only driving 20 minutes away — but for the 25 year old, that was just as dangerous.
Woolsey cried that night because two months earlier, her son confessed he’d been using heroin for a year. She feared every time he left that it would be the last time she’d see him alive.
“I hugged him and I cried, as I did every time he left my house once I knew,” she said, “and I told him I loved him.”
Her son was found dead of a drug overdose five hours later. Akron, Ohio, police discovered him in a vehicle in a fast-food parking lot near an Interstate 77 exit.
Ward’s death was one of thousands caused by overdoses of opiates — heroin, fentanyl and prescription painkillers — across the country in 2015. Overdose deaths have risen steadily over the past several years, leading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to label the spike a national public health concern. The topic has even been addressed by President Barack Obama and on the current presidential campaign trail.
In Summit County, more than 150 people died of opiate overdoses last year compared to 102 in 2014, according to the medical examiner’s office. That means in 2015, six times more people died from opioid overdoses than those who died in car crashes. Police, prosecutors, nonprofits and social services agencies locally and nationwide have all been working to deal with the epidemic.
Locally, Ward’s death is the focus of a criminal case in Summit County Common Pleas Court. LeTroy Vaughn — who’s already serving a three-year prison sentence for selling heroin — was charged in March with involuntary manslaughter, accused of providing Ward with the drugs that killed him.
FIGHTING ADDICTION
Woolsey is sharing her son’s story to urge other families to be more vigilant about helping their children overcome drug addiction.
“The heartbreak I felt when I got the phone call from the medical examiner’s office, I hope no mother ever has to feel that,” she said. “It’s just heartbreaking to know your child is gone and to know you couldn’t save them. You were always the fixer, the kisser of boo-boos, the [one who put on] Band-Aids, the taker to the ER. But I couldn’t fix this.”
Ward died after overdosing on fentanyl, a painkiller similar to heroin but 40 to 50 times stronger. Drug users may not always know what they purchased from dealers, and overdose often results, because they’re taking a much stronger drug than they’re used to using.
In Ward’s case, it’s unclear whether he knew he was using fentanyl.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions that may never be answered,” Woolsey said.
She said the night in early August when her son told her he used heroin was one of the hardest she’s endured. It was inconceivable to imagine her son — once the blond-haired, green-eyed little boy who loved to laugh — was now an addict.
“I felt like my heart just dropped out,” she said. “I had no idea. He was living in my house and I had no idea.”
In hindsight, she can see the signs. Ward had grown distant and irritable. His sleep patterns became irregular, and he would go “off the grid” on occasion.
“But he was an adult,” his mother said. “I didn’t want to interfere with his life.”
LOVE NOT ENOUGH
After she found out the truth, Woolsey said she tried to get him help — but he wasn’t ready. He insisted he wasn’t in danger.
She got a dose of naloxone, a heroin overdose antidote that she hoped she’d never have to use on him. She encouraged him to seek treatment, but he kept saying he was fine. So when the Beacon Journal ran a series in late August about a Barberton, Ohio, mother whose son died from heroin, she thought she might get through to him. Woolsey read the stories out loud to her son.
“Don’t you see what this does to families?” she recalled saying to him. “Don’t you see what could happen to you?”
Looking back, she can see the addiction was too powerful. Still, she wishes she had done more.
“He thought he could do it himself, and we thought we had more time,” she said with misty eyes. “It hurts to talk about, but Eric is important and he needs to be talked about.”
Ward’s grandmother, Judy Woolsey, said she feels the same way.
“I feel like such a failure for not taking care of my family, that I failed all of them. It’s hard to believe that beautiful boy is gone from us,” she said through tears. “I know in my brain that I’m not a failure, but I feel in my heart that I failed my family.”
She found out her grandson was an addict in late August. Ward’s younger brother, Logan, is her only remaining grandchild.
“I never dreamed that this would happen to him,” she said. “I thought we had time to get him help, to convince him, to do whatever we needed to do.”
Kelly Woolsey said her grief has not subsided.
“I turned my porch light on when he left that night,” she said. “It’s still on, waiting for him to come home. It’s been on for 25 weeks, and I don’t know when I’ll turn it off.”
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