Quick Take
Local health care providers, harm reduction advocates and survivors gathered on International Overdose Awareness Day on Friday to hand out information and potentially life-saving medication in Watsonville. Attendees heard from those working to combat the opioid crisis, as well as those who have been directly affected.
April Govea’s son, Anthony Avila, died from an overdose on April 22, 2016.
When her son’s father called to tell her, she didn’t believe it. When her family came to pick her up from work, part of her still didn’t believe it. It wasn’t until she got to his grandmother’s house and saw her son’s body for herself that it truly became real.
“I cannot explain the feeling of seeing not only a lifeless body, but the lifeless body of your only child,” she told the crowd Friday afternoon at a gathering marking International Overdose Awareness Day at Watsonville Plaza. “I watched my son’s body go by in a body bag, and that was the day my life forever changed.”
About 20 organizations and nonprofits working to combat the local opioid crisis had gathered to raise awareness, share information about local resources and hand out the overdose-reversal drug Narcan.
Local stories like Govea’s are tragically common. In Santa Cruz County alone, overdoses rose in just about every month between 2020 and 2022, largely due to the rise in availability and popularity of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. This year, fentanyl-related deaths are down so far, according to data from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. But health care professionals have urged caution regarding the numbers, saying that it is likely too early to say whether they will hold through the end of the year.
Govea said that her son took fentanyl after purchasing what he thought was a Xanax from a friend, which she later learned he had done before. She said he would never have suspected it would kill him.
“The point is, nobody suspects, nobody thinks, and let me tell you something, Narcan was not a thing in 2016,” she said.
Watsonville Community Hospital emergency room physician Marissa Haberlach told the crowd that recently, a 19-year-old patient arrived at the hospital by ambulance. She was unconscious and having trouble breathing. Later they learned she had been with friends prior to the incident and had taken a drug that, again, she thought was a Xanax. Luckily, a friend of hers had Narcan, and administered the drug before calling 911. Paramedics gave her more Narcan when they got to the scene, and the patient began to breathe on her own again. The hospital connected her with substance use treatment and support.
“Please speak with the ones that you love about their mental health and any drugs they may be using,” said Haberlach. “And please carry Narcan with you. It could be in your car, in your backpack, in your purse or in your desk.”
Danny Contreras, health service manager for the county’s medication-assisted treatment program, said that he spent time in prison after years of being around drugs, gangs and violence. While incarcerated, he said that he reflected on his life, and decided to use his experience to help others in his position.
“Sometimes we have a lot of trauma, hurt and pain, and there are things that have happened to us, but we don’t lose our value,” he said. “Our patients need to know they have value.”
After her speech, Govea — who now works with San Benito County Behavioral Health’s mobile crisis response team — told Lookout that her son never had the chance to attend educational events surrounding drug use and, most notably, fentanyl. She added that, while there is better access to those resources now, she thinks support groups for parents are a vital next step.
“I think that parents carry a lot of shame and guilt, and they don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “But they need to, and we need to have more conversations with our youth.”
Govea, who is from Hollister, thinks that the community-based work that has ramped up in recent years is “slowly but surely making a difference.” She said Hollister’s overdose rates are falling much like Santa Cruz County’s appear to be so far in 2024. She said normalizing conversations around drug safety should be one of the biggest objectives moving forward.
“It’s really a matter of coming together as a community and bringing awareness,” she said. “I think if both smaller and bigger cities make more efforts in bringing people together, we might be able to reduce the stigma a bit more.”
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