A Bell Island support centre marks Overdose Awareness Day with community vigil
CBC
A candlelight vigil on Bell Island Friday night marked International Overdose Awareness Day.
About 35 people gathered to remember friends and family who died from drug overdoses.
The event took place at The Hug, an addiction support centre on the island
"We have lost quite a few due to overdose on the island. Recently, up to last year, a young man passed from fentanyl and it made the whole island, more or less, come together," outreach worker Lee Taylor told CBC News.
"He was one of our own and he was so young."
Taylor said he overdosed three times in his own lifetime. He said it's a scary situation and when someone wakes up after an overdose, they experience a lot of confusion.
"You could have been dead. I'm four years clean now, going on my fifth. It's been a long road but I'm a lot healthier," said Taylor. "I feel better and I can work with the people that need me now because I couldn't help them when I was a user."
Fellow outreach worker Randy Ryan said to lose just one young person is a big deal and even one is too many.
Ryan said he knows the importance of his work. He remembers being called on to help when a friend of his daughter's boyfriend had overdosed.
Ryan assessed the man and helped save his life with his training.
"If they hadn't come got me when they did, well, he would have passed on," said Ryan. "But I got him back."
Taylor hoped people who attended the vigil would feel a little bit of happiness for the people that they lost by keeping their memories alive.
"It's going to be a warm feeling going around," he said.
"A lot of people, probably, being a little upset but still remembering their family and friends that have died. Just keep their names going. That's the big thing to me is, you never want the fallen people to be forgotten."
Venessa Liang removed the chocolate bars from their moulds and brushed a bit of edible gold dust on them to cover up tiny blemishes along the edges.
The new session of the Saskatchewan legislative assembly begins Monday with the election of a new Speaker and the government's throne speech, which will outline its priorities.
This First Person column is written by Melinda Maldonado, who lives in Toronto. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
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