Mother battles counterfeit drugs after daughter's fatal fentanyl overdose

As overdoses from illegal drugs continue to skyrocket in the U.S, NBC Montana’s Kylie Gibson spoke with a mother whose life is forever changed due to a deadly counterfeit situation.

It's a story you’ll only see on NBC Montana.

Fentanyl, we hear about it often, the dangers, how to avoid coming in contact with it, and just how lethal it is, but one thing we don’t often hear about is how these deadly overdoses affect families.

“My daughter was one in a long line of people that died from one distributor in my small town.”

Andrea Thomas, describes her daughter, Ashely Romero, as a 32-year-old loving mother, daughter, sister, grand daughter and a friend to many.

Unfortunately, Ashley Romero lost her life in 2018 from half of a counterfeit pill that contained a lethal dose of fentanyl.

“The day I lost Ashley, I remember sitting that evening at my kitchen table with my husband, and the disbelief that my daughter was gone from a half of a pill-- how is that even real,” said Thomas.

Thomas knew she did not want a family to feel the pain that she felt after losing her daughter, so she decided to turn her grief into action.

“I didn’t know anything about fentanyl in 2018, and like most parents after losing a child to these dangerous drugs we become experts,” Thomas explained.

Thomas started a foundation called Voices for Awareness, a non profit organization based in Grand Junction, Colorado.

It promotes awareness about counterfeit drugs, illicit fentanyl, and self harm-- the goal is to educate people on illicit fentanyl that is found in most street drugs today.

“If I didn’t know about fentanyl how many other families out there don’t know about fentanyl. So really, families like mine that bring awareness to the devastation that fentanyl brings to our families really just have a wish to help save others,” Thomas said.

Thomas also started a program called Project Facing Fentanyl which is now the home of the national fentanyl prevention and awareness day. It's supported by families and other non profits that help amplify the message about fentanyl.

Thomas refused to let her daughter’s life be forgotten, or turned into another statistic.

“We have to remember that each one of those numbers was a person that was loved and so many more people are affected. There is a fallout that comes with this, and now, with these high numbers that we see, we really want to make sure that people remember that these are our family members and we can’t undo any of this,” said Thomas.

The man who distributed that lethal pill that killed Thomas’ daughter, Ashley, received a life sentence for the distribution of illicit deadly fentanyl pills in Colorado.