Portrait of loss: 15 women, 16 overdose deaths, one national drug crisis

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The War is at Home –

Aug. 31, 2019 – Pam Turgeon, 56. Her son Ryan Turgeon worked all over the world in oil and gas. He came back to Canada after suffering a mental breakdown. He fought to recover, working out and going to meetings, but partying made him feel better. One night a neighbour offered him cocaine that turned out to be laced with fentanyl. Ms. Turgeon found him at 9:05 p.m. on Feb. 1, 2016, his father’s birthday. When she tried to revive him with CPR, “his body was cold and unresponsive.” He was 32 … Carrie Koski, 56. Her son Mathew Koski had a sunny early childhood. His older sister treated him as her baby, dressing him up for fun. But at school he went from being the adored younger sibling to “the slow learner, the kid from a broken home, the kid in the rental house.” He started using drugs in his teens and “nothing we did could turn him back to us.” By age 27, he seemed to be bouncing back. He had started a landscaping business and had reconnected with his sister. On his last day, a Sunday, he trimmed the cedars in the backyard and swam with his nieces. He went up to bed that evening and was discovered dead in the morning. It was June 5, 2016.