Family shares fentanyl poisoning story to help others avoid heartache

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - The 13abc I-Team is taking action to shine a light on a deadly problem on our streets: fentanyl.

The newest issue is fake pills. One local mother is feeling the bottomless pain those pills can cause after her teenage son died. The hope is people take the message to heart so no one else feels the heartache they do.

Things were on the right track for 19-year-old Jayden Miller. He’d held a solid job at Campbell Soup in Napoleon, living on his own, becoming independent.

In August of last year his mother got a phone call that will forever haunt her. She was told her son had overdosed. She was about to learn he was poisoned by fentanyl.

“I was telling myself that I was going to walk into an ER where they had pumped his stomach and I was gonna whoop the crap out of him because he had done something stupid and how the heck did you overdose? What did you take?” said his mother Adrienne Sautter.

Friends that were with him at that time told the family he believed he was taking a Percocet, a pill not prescribed to him by a doctor. He actually ingested fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s highly addictive and potentially deadly. Miller stopped breathing and was later transported a hospital where doctors found no brain activity.

“You never ever think you’re going to get that phone call that your beautiful child, who’s a good kid, who is learning, exploring and starting your life is not going to wake up,” said Sautter.

Sautter wants Jayden’s death to let everyone know the dangers of fake pills and fentanyl. You may have even noticed a billboard that she put together with her nonprofit “4 Them We Fight.” It’s a firsthand account of how dangerous it can be to take a pill you were not prescribed.

“We don’t live in an era anymore where if somebody asks for an Adderall they’re going to get an Adderall. The supply is tainted,” said Sautter

“If someone offers you something, I would not even touch it,” said Quinn Auten, DEA resident agent in charge of the Toledo field office.

That’s the stern warning from Agent Auten, sounding the alarm on these fake pills. The DEA estimates 60% of the pills people get illegally contain fentanyl. It can kill, it has killed and it’s taken bright young people.

“I don’t think at 19 that that registered. You’re 19 years old, you think you’re invincible. You don’t pay attention to the news,” said Sautter.

Tough conversations now could save lives.

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