Drug Concerns In LA Rise After Multiple Students Overdose, One Found Dead In School Bathroom
A student was found dead inside a restroom in LA's Bernstein High school from an apparent overdose, following a string of similar events from deadly drugs being sold to teens at a nearby park.
Drug use among adolescents isn’t necessarily increasing, yet the overdose mortality rate for this demographic has exponentially skyrocketed, soaring by 94% between 2019 and 2020. This peculiar finding is largely due to the increasing amount of fentanyl found in common street drugs, which is causing far more teens to overdose. In Los Angeles, the situation is alarming parents following the death of a student on a school campus, with a plethora of similar overdoses nearby.
According to a report from US News, a Bernstein High school student died of an apparent overdose inside one of the school’s bathrooms. On top of that, authorities are investigating at least three other teen overdoses at parks nearby the school. Police believe it’s linked to fentanyl, which is being found laced in counterfeit pills as of late.
The student’s death occurred on Tuesday, September 13th. A father grew concerned after his daughter never came home from school. That evening, he drove to the school looking for his daughter, where he learned of the overdose.
He located his daughter inside one of the school’s courtyards. The teen was suffering from an overdose. However, she was able to alert him that one of her friends had also done drugs and was inside one of the school’s restrooms.
Alerting a school employee, the father and a staffer found the young girl unresponsive inside the restroom. While the two men did everything they could waiting for paramedics to arrive, she was pronounced dead inside the school. It is unknown how long she was left inside the bathroom in that state.
The other girl was sent to a nearby hospital where she was expected to recover from the overdose. Countless others remain like her all around LA. Just that day alone, the fire department reported responding to similar incidents involving teens at Lexington Park, just a few blocks from the Bernstein High School.
At least six overdose cases have been linked to Lexington Park in the last few weeks. The district’s superintendent noted that the park is notorious for drug dealers that are willing to sell deadly fentanyl-laced pills to teenage students. But parents are hopeful those numbers will soon fall, as a local councilmember ordered the park to close down following the deadly overdose this past Wednesday.
Overdose reports aren’t just troubling parents in LA, but all over the country as well. Many schools are now responding to the dire situation by adding Narcan to their list of available school supplies. Baltimore, Denver, Kansas City, and Kyle, Texas are just some adding the life-saving counteractive drug to their nurse’s stations to combat the effects of an overdose.
Grief counselors were added to the LA high school campus on Wednesday for student access. Local law enforcement is doing its best to alert parents and teens of the risk of overdose associated with fentanyl, especially as it pops up in more illegal drugs. But unfortunately, combining this deadly drug with a worsening teen mental health crisis only appears to mean that more tragic events like this will continue to pop up across the nation.
