A San Bruno mother is speaking out for the first time since losing her 18-year-old son to a drug overdose involving Xanax laced with fentanyl.
Authorities say this opioid problem is taking aim at high school teens and young adults.
Students are remembering their former classmate at a memorial in San Bruno on Wednesday.
Two months ago, David Ochoa overdosed on Xanax laced with fentanyl.
“They were up late playing video games until 2 in the morning,” mother Karin Ochoa said. “They all woke up and he didn’t.”
It was eventually determined that it was the fentanyl that had killed David. It is a drug that can be 100 times more powerful than heroin or morphine.
It’s unclear how many pills David had, possibly four or five, according to his family. Experts told the family that one could have killed him too.
Sound like a rare case? Not at all.
We’ve seen recent cases like this in San Francisco, Petaluma, and San Bruno.
“It’s the new party drug to have. It’s becoming an epidemic. People are overdosing,” Ochoa said.
Ochoa wants to get the word out to parents and their children that these drugs are dangerous.
Former classmates of David tell KRON4 that they can get a pill or Xanax bar, as it is called, for $5 illegally.
David’s parents put him in an outpatient program when they found pills he had bought months before. He had already graduated from high school and was working when the tragedy hit.
“He didn’t stand a chance,” Ochoa said. “Nobody stands a chance against fentanyl. You don’t get a fighting chance. You take it and that’s it.”
And now because of that decision, Karin is left without a son.
“The other thing that eats at me is that I miss him,” Ochoa said. “I’m never going to see him again in real life.”