poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 11,543
Son’s drug overdose death a wake-up call, parents say
HEIDELBERG — Christine and Klaus Padaric don’t care who knows their 17-year-old son, Austin, died of a drug overdose during a party at an Elmira apartment last month.
They want people to know. Especially teenagers like their son.
For them, Christine has a message: “Kids, this is real. This happens. It’s now happened to one of yours.’’
Austin’s death, from an accidental overdose of hydromorphone pills, has been a real wake-up call for many of her son’s friends, she said during a recent conversation with her husband, Klaus, at the dining room table of their comfortable Heidelberg home.
“It’s painful every day to think of why did it have to be my son,’’ she said.
From what the family has been able to piece together, Austin went to a party with friends at an Elmira apartment the night of Friday, April 5.
His mother says there were about six people there. One was a friend Austin worked with at the Black Forest Inn in Conestogo where he had just landed a new job.
Austin had been hanging out with this friend for about a month. His usual school friends and skateboarding friends hadn’t been seeing as much of him, his mother said.
The new friend had been taking him to his Flamingo Drive apartment where he lived with two other people.
Police charged one of those two people — a 20-year-old male — with drug production and trafficking after Austin’s death.
They found marijuana plants and 83 suspected hydromorphone pills in the apartment. Hydromorphone is a narcotic pain reliever. A female also faces drug charges.
Austin had told his parents he was going to the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival Saturday and would be staying overnight with friends Friday.
That night, the teens crushed hydromorphone pills and snorted them, the Padarics said. Around 3 a.m., their son was in distress and vomiting.
He was placed in a cold bathtub. The other people at the party thought he would sleep it off and everyone went to bed, Christine Padaric said.
It wasn’t until around 10:30 a.m. that someone called 911 and an ambulance was sent.
Although the lanky teen wouldn’t officially be pronounced dead for almost another week, an MRI later showed that “A large amount of his brain had basically died,” his father said.
Paramedics managed to restart his heart at the apartment, but he wasn’t getting enough oxygen to his brain and never regained consciousness.
His parents invited his numerous friends into his intensive care room at McMaster Hospital in Hamilton. Close to 20 teens came to stand sombrely by his bedside.
Austin lay sprawled on his back in a green hospital gown — arms out at his sides, his knees and legs exposed. His six-foot-four-inch frame barely fit on the bed. There were tubes everywhere.
His mother took jarring photos of those moments.
“We wanted his friends to see what drugs looked like,” she said.
She gave his buddies time alone with him in case they had anything to say.
After the Padarics discovered the extent of his brain damage, they removed their son from life support.
They decided to donate his organs. Amazingly, tests showed all his organs were suitable for harvesting.
“It was as though in that short week, he’d been able to repair his body, even though his brain was irreparable,” Klaus Padaric said.
His heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas and liver were given to five adults.
Although that provided them with some comfort, “The amount of good that came out of it is very small compared to Austin’s death,” Klaus Padaric said. “It’s not even close to a fair trade.”
Austin’s parents knew their son smoked marijuana on weekends and drank with his friends. They didn’t like it. They’d told him he couldn’t bring marijuana home.
“Austin was going to do what he was going to do,” his mother said.
They’d had the drug talk with him. He knew the dangers of opioids.
They believe this was the first time he’d taken a narcotic and that someone in the apartment gave him the pills.
Ironically, Austin had experienced what his mother calls “an epiphany” about a month earlier. He came to realize that, “Anything good or bad in his life was a result of himself — no one else,” his mother said. “He was in full control of his actions.”
He’d even put up a list on his bedroom wall of the things he needed to change. His father said he was “stepping into manhood.”
Austin knew, for example, that he had to return to school to get better marks in order to go on to college.
It appeared he was on his way. That’s why his parents don’t get it. Why did he try hydromorphone?
They say their son was a polite kid who loved skateboarding, hockey and snowboarding. Most of all, he liked hanging out with his friends.
He wasn’t loud or a troublemaker, they said. He had a picture of daisies on his screensaver.
His mother believes there’s something she can do to prevent his from happening again. She wants to help create “safe constructive activities for kids in smaller towns.”
“Had there been something better to do, Austin would have been doing it,” she said.
“There’s no shortage of camps for little kids and after-school programs. You become a teenager, what do you have to do here?”
Her son loved going to the Wellesley Skate Park, even though it wasn’t a proper park, just a multi-sports pad inside the community arena.
A plan to create a new dedicated park is underway. Austin’s friends have started a petition to have township council name it after him.
Austin would have loved that, his parents say.
“He always used to say if he won the lottery, he’d build a skateboard park,” his father said.
Michael Parkinson, community engagement co-ordinator of the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, agrees youth need improved recreation activities — “the kind of activities they want to do, at times that suit them and at no cost,” he said.
If a drug overdose is suspected, someone should perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as well as chest compressions, Parkinson said.
“An opioid overdose is respiratory failure,” he said.
James Quin Kurtz, 20, is charged with marijuana production, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, trafficking in hydromorphone and possession of hydromorphone for the purpose of trafficking, possession of psilocybin and breach of probation.
Lydia Devlin, 19, also faces a number of charges.
“The circumstances surrounding the activities that occurred that night are still under investigation by police,” Olaf Heinzel, a Waterloo Regional Police spokesperson said Thursday.
http://metronews.ca/news/kitchener/670095/sons-drug-overdose-death-a-wake-up-call-parents-say/
HEIDELBERG — Christine and Klaus Padaric don’t care who knows their 17-year-old son, Austin, died of a drug overdose during a party at an Elmira apartment last month.
They want people to know. Especially teenagers like their son.
For them, Christine has a message: “Kids, this is real. This happens. It’s now happened to one of yours.’’
Austin’s death, from an accidental overdose of hydromorphone pills, has been a real wake-up call for many of her son’s friends, she said during a recent conversation with her husband, Klaus, at the dining room table of their comfortable Heidelberg home.
“It’s painful every day to think of why did it have to be my son,’’ she said.
From what the family has been able to piece together, Austin went to a party with friends at an Elmira apartment the night of Friday, April 5.
His mother says there were about six people there. One was a friend Austin worked with at the Black Forest Inn in Conestogo where he had just landed a new job.
Austin had been hanging out with this friend for about a month. His usual school friends and skateboarding friends hadn’t been seeing as much of him, his mother said.
The new friend had been taking him to his Flamingo Drive apartment where he lived with two other people.
Police charged one of those two people — a 20-year-old male — with drug production and trafficking after Austin’s death.
They found marijuana plants and 83 suspected hydromorphone pills in the apartment. Hydromorphone is a narcotic pain reliever. A female also faces drug charges.
Austin had told his parents he was going to the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival Saturday and would be staying overnight with friends Friday.
That night, the teens crushed hydromorphone pills and snorted them, the Padarics said. Around 3 a.m., their son was in distress and vomiting.
He was placed in a cold bathtub. The other people at the party thought he would sleep it off and everyone went to bed, Christine Padaric said.
It wasn’t until around 10:30 a.m. that someone called 911 and an ambulance was sent.
Although the lanky teen wouldn’t officially be pronounced dead for almost another week, an MRI later showed that “A large amount of his brain had basically died,” his father said.
Paramedics managed to restart his heart at the apartment, but he wasn’t getting enough oxygen to his brain and never regained consciousness.
His parents invited his numerous friends into his intensive care room at McMaster Hospital in Hamilton. Close to 20 teens came to stand sombrely by his bedside.
Austin lay sprawled on his back in a green hospital gown — arms out at his sides, his knees and legs exposed. His six-foot-four-inch frame barely fit on the bed. There were tubes everywhere.
His mother took jarring photos of those moments.
“We wanted his friends to see what drugs looked like,” she said.
She gave his buddies time alone with him in case they had anything to say.
After the Padarics discovered the extent of his brain damage, they removed their son from life support.
They decided to donate his organs. Amazingly, tests showed all his organs were suitable for harvesting.
“It was as though in that short week, he’d been able to repair his body, even though his brain was irreparable,” Klaus Padaric said.
His heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas and liver were given to five adults.
Although that provided them with some comfort, “The amount of good that came out of it is very small compared to Austin’s death,” Klaus Padaric said. “It’s not even close to a fair trade.”
Austin’s parents knew their son smoked marijuana on weekends and drank with his friends. They didn’t like it. They’d told him he couldn’t bring marijuana home.
“Austin was going to do what he was going to do,” his mother said.
They’d had the drug talk with him. He knew the dangers of opioids.
They believe this was the first time he’d taken a narcotic and that someone in the apartment gave him the pills.
Ironically, Austin had experienced what his mother calls “an epiphany” about a month earlier. He came to realize that, “Anything good or bad in his life was a result of himself — no one else,” his mother said. “He was in full control of his actions.”
He’d even put up a list on his bedroom wall of the things he needed to change. His father said he was “stepping into manhood.”
Austin knew, for example, that he had to return to school to get better marks in order to go on to college.
It appeared he was on his way. That’s why his parents don’t get it. Why did he try hydromorphone?
They say their son was a polite kid who loved skateboarding, hockey and snowboarding. Most of all, he liked hanging out with his friends.
He wasn’t loud or a troublemaker, they said. He had a picture of daisies on his screensaver.
His mother believes there’s something she can do to prevent his from happening again. She wants to help create “safe constructive activities for kids in smaller towns.”
“Had there been something better to do, Austin would have been doing it,” she said.
“There’s no shortage of camps for little kids and after-school programs. You become a teenager, what do you have to do here?”
Her son loved going to the Wellesley Skate Park, even though it wasn’t a proper park, just a multi-sports pad inside the community arena.
A plan to create a new dedicated park is underway. Austin’s friends have started a petition to have township council name it after him.
Austin would have loved that, his parents say.
“He always used to say if he won the lottery, he’d build a skateboard park,” his father said.
Michael Parkinson, community engagement co-ordinator of the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, agrees youth need improved recreation activities — “the kind of activities they want to do, at times that suit them and at no cost,” he said.
If a drug overdose is suspected, someone should perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as well as chest compressions, Parkinson said.
“An opioid overdose is respiratory failure,” he said.
James Quin Kurtz, 20, is charged with marijuana production, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, trafficking in hydromorphone and possession of hydromorphone for the purpose of trafficking, possession of psilocybin and breach of probation.
Lydia Devlin, 19, also faces a number of charges.
“The circumstances surrounding the activities that occurred that night are still under investigation by police,” Olaf Heinzel, a Waterloo Regional Police spokesperson said Thursday.
http://metronews.ca/news/kitchener/670095/sons-drug-overdose-death-a-wake-up-call-parents-say/
