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DEADLY ‘Sometimes the DRUG: cards just fall’ Mother-of-three’s death underscores danger of fentanyl
Tyler OLSEN Abbotsford News
WACKY VIDEO GETS ATTENTION
Heather was a mother of three who loved to bake and would volunteer at her oldest daughter’s school. She didn’t look anything like a stereotypical drug user, but in the early-morning hours of June 30, her husband Boris found his commonlaw wife, who occasionally used heroin, slumped on the living room carpet. The paramedics who rushed to the house while Boris tried to revive his wife would later tell him Heather, 27, had likely been dead for two hours. A toxicology report later showed that she had unwittingly injected methylfentanyl – an especially potent version of fentanyl – thinking it was heroin. On Wednesday, Boris sat smoking a cigarette on the steps of the Abbotsford home he shared with his wife for years. The deaths of several Vancouverarea people at the hands of fentanyl disguised as heroin in recent weeks have prompted public warnings. Boris wants the public to know the issue affects a wide spectrum of people in the community. “People need to realize it doesn’t just affect a certain type of people,” he said. His wife had began taking Oxycontin before moving onto heroin. After stopping using for several months, she had returned to the drug “off and on” after a failed early pregnancy left her in the hospital with physical and emotional Continued on A4
A7 Local independent candidate draws views from around the world for unusual ad
MOTORCYCLE FATALITY A6 Man dies in mishap, but 10-year-old son survives crash near Aldergrove
STEPPING UP TO LEDGEVIEW A26 Vancouver Open champion labels Abbotsford course “mentally challenging.”
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85¢ Boris sits with a photo of his wife, Heather, who died in late June after overdosing on fentanyl she believed to be TYLER OLSEN Abbotsford News heroin.
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