'I could feel his heartbeat get fainter...' Opioid overdose crisis hit Columbus mom's heart

Jack Shuler is the author of"This is Ohio: The Overdose Crisis and the Front Lines of a New America" and is a Denison University journalism professor who writes forThe Reporting Project, which makes its content available free to news organizations.

When Debbie Willis picked up the phone early on a Saturday morning in July 2019, she learned that her son Caleb, 29, was being rushed to the hospital — he had overdosed on a pill that contained fentanyl.

She remembers the rest of that day as an accumulation of waiting, wondering, and worrying. 

More:Opioid overdose crisis subject of first in-person Columbus Conversations

Overnight in the ICU, Caleb went into cardiac arrest five times.

After a neurologist said his brain was no longer functioning, Debbie described thinking that if it was God’s will for him to live, he would live. And if God planned for him to die, at least he would no longer be suffering. 

At 2 p.m. the next day, Caleb went off life support, and Debbie placed her hand on his heart.

An aspiring and talented musician, Caleb left behind two sons.

He was funny and bright and caring, she told me. On the Soundcloud page for Rinzo Lotty, Caleb’s stage name, he writes that “love has gone missing” from our world, and he’s here to “to bring it back.” 

“I was standing there next to him,” Debbie said. “And I had my hand on his heart, and I could feel his heartbeat get fainter and fainter, and it stopped at 2:06 p.m.”

A crisis in heart of Ohio

More:Portman: OSU deaths example of terrifying rise of counterfeit drugs. National action needed.

In the early days of the overdose crisis, white people died at higher rates than Black people — but that has changed. Based on data from the Ohio Department of Health, advocacy organization Harm Reduction Ohio has estimated that since 2019, the overdose rate for Black Ohioans has been higher than that of white Ohioans. 

In 2021, when almost 5,200 Ohioans died from overdose, the overdose death rate for white people was 42.7 deaths per 100,000 residents, and it was 58.7 for Black people.

In Franklin County, the overdose death rate for Black people was 67.7 compared to 42.3 for white people.

Put another way, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Black people make up 13.2% of Ohio’s population, and yet, they account for 20% of opioid overdose deaths so far this year. (In 2014, it was less than 8%).

More:Dispatches from the Overdose Crisis: Life enabler

Based on searches and seizure data from BCI, the presence of fentanyl in the drug supply, especially in cocaine, is the primary driver of these deaths, but the social determinants of health also play a role. 

More:Daily Distraction: Read Jack Shuler's story on overdoses, harm reduction in The Atlantic

In a recent letter to the editor of The American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers wrote that the surge in overdoses between 2010 and 2019 among Black people in the United States “must be understood as a symptom of structural racism.” Black people who use drugs have more barriers to treatment, to medical care, and to access harm reduction supplies like the overdose reversal drug, naloxone.

Fraternity lending hand, touching hearts

Kappa Foundation of Columbus, the charitable wing of the local alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, a historically Black fraternity, in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Health’s Project DAWN naloxone distribution initiative, is addressing one barrier by distributing naloxone specifically to Black people in the 14 hardest-hit zip codes in Franklin County.

This pilot program will run until September 29. Kappa has partnered with 22 community-based organizations and businesses including Afrocentric Personal Development Shop, Second Baptist Church, Wizards of Hair Care, and the New American Resource Center, among others, and supplies them with naloxone and training.

Beyond that, Kappa’s volunteer distributors knock on doors, reach out to folks late at night, and walk the streets distributing naloxone. It’s a community-led project. Kappa goes where the people are: to churches, barber shops, and community events, like one in May where I first met Debbie Willis.

It was an open house event for a Columbus youth organization called All That on East Livingston Avenue. 

More:Hope, struggle and harm reduction in 'This is Ohio'

Close to her heart

Kappa volunteer Jimi Yates, 71, was there to hand out naloxone. Not everyone has the means to get to distribution points, he said, and not everyone knows it’s free. Yates says the problem of overdose in the Black community in Franklin County is also about who gets targeted in Ohio — who has access to health resources and education.

He likens the problem to food deserts. 

“When they set up rules and start distribution of anything,” Yates said, “they’re really not looking at inner-city populations or ethnic populations.”

Yates gave out 47 kits with two doses of naloxone in each over the course of a few hours. He gave two of those kits to Debbie. 

In Caleb’s honor, she carried them close to her heart.

And then she gave them to others so that they don’t lose the ones they love. 

Naloxone is available throughKappa Foundation, Harm Reduction Ohio, Central Ohio Harm Reduction, Franklin County Health Department, Columbus Public Health and Safepoint. Support services are also available through Never Use Alone, Brave and Safepoint.

Columbus Conversation planned about opioid overdose crisis

WHAT: Dispatch presents Columbus Conversations: "What is the state of the opioid crisis in our community?"

When: 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 31.

Where: The Fawcett Center on The Ohio State Campus Conference Theater, 2400 Olentangy River Road.

Who: Opinion and Community Engagement Editor Amelia Robinson will host the discussion, a partnership between the Dispatch, Central Ohio Hospital Council, Ohio State University and WOSU Public Media.

Panelists are

• Erika Clark Jones, CEO, ADAMH Franklin County
• Dr. Krisanna Deppen, program director, OhioHealth Grant Addiction Medicine Fellowship
• Brian Pierson, vice president, Community Health and Well-being, Mount Carmel Health System
• Dr. Erin McKnight, medical director, Medication Assisted Treatment for Addiction Program, Nationwide Children's Hospital
• Matt Parrish, Captain, Columbus Division of Fire
• Dr. Emily Kauffman, emergency medicine physician, OSU Wexner Medical Center East
• Juliet Dorris-Williams, executive director, The P.E.E.R. Center
• Andrea Boxill, administrator, Alcohol and Drug Services, Columbus Public Health

Cost: Free

Jack Shuler is the author of"This is Ohio: The Overdose Crisis and the Front Lines of a New America"and is a Denison University journalism professor who writes forThe Reporting Project, which makes its content available free to news organizations.