A Kitchener mother prepares to mark the second anniversary of her teenage son’s death from an accidental opioid overdose.
Zion Williams-Farrell was 14 when he took a pill that he thought was Xanax. The pill he took contained a deadly dose of fentanyl.
Zion’s mother Jamie Farrell comes to McLennan Park to remember her son. It’s a special place for the Farrell family: it’s where Jamie and Zion shared one of their last laughs.
“Whenever I climb to the top of that hill, it just feels right,” she says.
The teen is one of more than 10,000 Canadians who have died to opioid overdoses since 2016. The numbers have prompted the federal government to introduce new measures to fight what it calls a pressing health crisis.
Farrell agrees that more can be done.
“I just feel like there needs to be so much more urgency to it,” she says.
Police say there have been more than 28 suspected opioid overdoses since January—this time last year, there were only 13.
Williams-Farrell was the youngest person to die from an opioid overdose in the region—that may change to a two-year-old girl who died in February from a suspected fentanyl overdose.
“Fentanyl doesn’t have a specific type of person it goes for—a two year old, a 14 year old—it proves to me that this drug—we need help, awareness needs to be there,” Farrell says.
Jamie Farrell says she speaks openly about her son’s death in hopes that teens across the country remember him when they are offered any type of drug.
You can watch Jamie Farrell's full interview with Nicole Lampa in the video player above or by following this link.
