BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS—Tina Baker, the mother of a fentanyl overdose victim, told her story at an Overdose Awareness Seminar Thursday, Oct. 20, at First Baptist Church, Middleburg.
The Navy veteran and current director of the Community Partnership School at Keystone Heights High School, Baker, said her son Jacob was a soccer player at Middleburg High School and was being recruited by the University of North Florida when he injured his knee. While recovering from his second surgery, Jacob became addicted to Oxycontin, prescribed after the surgeries.
Baker described the lack of resources available for the families of addicts.
“We didn’t have anyone to turn to for an addiction,” she said. “I went to the Navy base, and they gave me resources out in Jacksonville, but they weren’t equipped to handle adolescents addicted to drugs.”
“And on top of that: the insurance,” she added. “If he was anorexic, that was a diagnosis they could (bill insurance for) and take care of him. But because it was an addiction, the insurance companies wanted to do outpatient.”
Baker also discussed the stigma associated with drug addiction.
“Yes, there is this stigma:” she said of the narratives that run through the minds of parents of addicted children. “You know, the blame is on me. I was a bad mother. I should have gotten him help.”
Baker said that as her son’s addiction progressed, she had to kick him out of the house. She added that his subsequent arrest for check forgery turned out to be a positive development.
“He was able to go through detox in jail,” she said. “He was on probation, doing very well: being drug tested regularly, was receiving counseling. He even had a great job, was going back to school, and was doing really well.”
Baker said what happened next blindsided her.
“It was Friday night,” she recalled. “He had just gotten off of work, and he looked at me. I was on the phone talking to my sister, and he says, ‘I love you, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ And that was the last I heard from him because he never came home.”
Later that evening, Jacob met a high school friend and the acquaintance’s girlfriend in Orange Park. The trio obtained cocaine which was laced with fentanyl. The bodies of the two men were found two days later. The girlfriend survived.
“I saw the autopsy drug report,” Baker said. “Jacob was clean, and I think it was just a fluke. He just said: ‘Okay, I’m going to try it just this one time, and his luck ran out. Cocaine may not have killed him, but it was the fentanyl. I don’t even know if he knew it was laced. If he did, I don’t think he would’ve taken it.”
Baker said she will never forget Jacob’s radiant smile, his fondness for fishing, and his love for his father, who was killed at sea in a Navy accident when Jacob was five.
“He was friendly and always had a fish story,” she said.
Baker also said that several of her son’s friends have told her they have stopped using after hearing about Jacob’s struggles, and parents of addicted children have told her they have been encouraged by her story.
“I appreciate that,” Baker said. “It gives meaning to Jacob’s death. It wasn’t in vain.”
