It's a crisis that’s poisoning Valley streets.
We’re talking about illicit drugs containing one of the deadliest opioids ever created: fentanyl.
We’ve shared stories about this drug killing people of all ages.
It’s a drug that does not discriminate and continues plaguing Valley streets, slowly making its way into homes.
Peggy Hernandez showed us around her home. One that used to be full of laughter with her four children. Now…only two are alive.
“I feel like a piece of me is gone,” she said.
It’s a place where Jesse Grooms and Marlin Black can only be seen in pictures. They are two brothers who were poisoned to death by drugs.
Marlin, dying of fentanyl toxicity.
It’s been years since her youngest boy, Marlin, passed away at 27 years old.
“He was 6’2’’, 280 pounds. One pill took my son out,” Hernandez told ABC15.
She remembers her daughter screaming, like it was yesterday.
“She just screamed. Mom, he's on the floor. His legs are purple. Mom. Mom. So, I kicked the door and ran into his room, and I opened up the door…and he was face down and he was cold. And I was shaking him and taking him and screaming Marlin, Marlin get up. But I knew he was gone,” she said in tears.
The autopsy report saying Marlin died of fentanyl toxicity.
“The autopsy report said 9.7 ng of fentanyl which is granules of salt. He was poisoned by fentanyl.”
It’s a drug that made her son’s heart stop, and while Hernandez’s heart is still beating, she says a part of her died when her youngest passed.
“And I know my son didn’t know what he was taking. My son thought he was getting an oxy or percocet.”
All it took was one pill.
Seven months later Jesse Grooms died, at 32 years old, due to an accidental overdose of heroin.
“Do you believe he could have just as easily died because of fentanyl?” asked ABC15’s Luzdelia Caballero.
“Oh yes. Yes. Oh definitely,” Hernandez responded.
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, since 2017, data shows overdose deaths due to heroin have decreased significantly.
Whereas overdose deaths due to other opioids, including fentanyl but excluding heroin, have been going up.
“That’s our biggest threat right now,” said Special Agent Cheri Oz.
Agent Oz, who’s worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration for the last two decades, says fentanyl seizures in Arizona have gone from zero in 2016 to…
“So far this year we’ve seized over 8-million fentanyl pills. Last year we seized over 12-million fentanyl pills. The problem has gone from nonexistent to being something we’re being overrun with,” added Special Agent Oz.
Now all Hernandez has are memories and pictures to remember her boys by.
“They’re still young. They had their whole life. They don’t get the chance to really be dads. Watch their daughters get married or watch their sons graduate high school. Or their first grandchild,” said Hernandez.
It’s a reality that’s motivated her to start the J & M Walk to Fight AZ organization, in honor of her sons. Her mission: to save lives and bring awareness to the dangers of fentanyl.
“They died for a reason and sadly it’s to help the next. That’s one family less that has to hurt like our family does,” Hernandez told ABC15.
The Hernandez family is hosting an event through the J & M Walk to Fight AZ Organization, where they will be distributing free Narcan.
The event is happening on November 12, in Mesa.
More details can be found on the organization’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
