The town of East Windsor is battling a shocking death toll.
In just the last four months, there have been four confirmed heroin-related deaths there, in a town with a population of only 9,800 people.
At a community meeting Tuesday teachers, families, drug and grief experts, and police met to say they all must be first responders to signs of heroin use. They learned how it’s bought, why more people are using it, and how to look for clues someone might be using.
Last month a 14-year old local girl overdosed and died while using heroin.
Marcy Julian’s son became addicted to opioids ten years ago. She shared her story with a crowd of about 100 people in the high school auditorium. “It happens to people like me, it happens to people like you. Drug addiction doesn’t care about zip codes or whether or not you live in a suburb or live in a city or whether or not you have a good home.”
On Monday the state’s chief medical examiner released statistics showing there were 257 accidental heroin deaths in Connecticut last year, a 48 % increase from 2012.