Oregon City High School Increases Fentanyl Awareness

On May 24, 2023, an assembly was scheduled at Oregon City High School to inform students about fentanyl awareness. Around 10:00 AM, 2500 students and staff transferred to the school gymnasium, where a few presentations were held. Two parents told their stories about losing their children to fentanyl over the last five years.

The first presentation was held by Michelle Stroh, a mom of a teenager in high school that obtained 1 pill of fentanyl. Michelle's son took the pill the night before and ended up dying over the night within his sleep. 

The next morning, Stroh noticed that her son wasn’t awake yet as the day was approaching the late afternoon. She began calling for her son to wake up. She didn’t receive an answer after the first few seconds of calling, so she began to walk up the stairs in agony, continuing to call for her son to wake up. After no answer, she began to knock on his door. This quickly led to a bang after there was still no response.

“I had the fear that something could really be wrong, but then I just thought maybe it was just my worried mom instinct kicking in,” Stroh said.

After banging on the door with no answer, she entered the room to find her son with AirPods sitting up on his bed. She called his name one more time and touched his shoulder to find it cold. At around 1:00 PM on July 18, 2020 Strohʻs son was pronounced dead, and the cause of death was an overdose of one pill of fentanyl.

A Christmas Overdose

The second presenter in the fentanyl assembly at Oregon City High School was Chris Didier, a father of 5 kids. Didier shared his story about his 17 year old son, Zach Didier, who lost his life to a fentanyl overdose the day after Christmas 2020.

 Zach did well in school; Didier said he was an athlete in two sports, played the piano and got great grades.

Zach was at the mall with a group of friends that he wasn’t able to see in awhile because of being stuck in the Coronavirus lock down. Zach used the Snapchat app (a social media app) to locate a drug dealer within the mall he was shopping in. Zach met up with the dealer and thought he was buying a percocet pill for sleeping, Didier said.

Little that Zach knew the pill that he thought was a sleeping pill was maliciously packed with fentanyl particles.

Zach took the pill late at night as he was playing video games. “His father said he would stay up late playing online video games with his friends.” 

“The next morning, I found Zach asleep at his desk. His head was laying down on his arm. I could feel before I even touched him that something was horribly wrong,” Didier said.

Didier realized that Zach was not breathing and was cold to the touch. Didier started shouting at Zach to wake up but there was no response. Didier told his other son walking up the stairs to call 911. After EMS arrived and attempted to resuscitate Zach they then stopped.

“I started resuming CPR, and they just stood there. I got mad at them and said, ‘Guys, help me save my boy.’ When they didn’t, I started trying to talk to Zach and begged him, ‘Don’t go. Come back. Please come back. Do not go,’” Didier said.

Zach Didier’s sudden death was initially a mystery to investigators, but the Placer County Coroner had two theories on the day of his death: either an undetected medical issue or fentanyl. It turned out to be Fentanyl.

Drug Abuse in Schools

Drug use in schools from college down to the elementary schools has been an increasing problem over the last decade in the state of Oregon, said Michelle Horan from Clackamas Youth Intervention Services.

“The top three drugs I see that are most common in middle schools and high schools are nicotine, cannabis and marijuana,” Horan said.

“From my experience, the cannabis that is being used today by students is not the same cannabis that was used 30 years ago. So many more chemicals are added to the cannabis plant now than before,” Horan said. 

More chemicals have been added to increase the amount of users of cannabis as well as the overall experience the user will get from the substance. Cannabis was a much different drug back 30 years ago. It was still dangerous, but not to the level that it is today.

Michelle's job is to help find treatment for students abusing these drugs. Horan said her overall goal is to not punish anyone for abusing drugs, but instead to help them find treatment. Michelle says that she loves working with teenagers of all ages, and she speaks with students that have trouble with drug abuse. Michelle said that this problem is bad and is only getting worse. Some of the stories that she hears from students have had a lasting impact on her, Horan said.

“Treatment is not mandatory. We hope that people want to change and set goals, but that's not always the case,” Horan said. As much as Michelle would like to help students with their addictions, she isn’t always able to.

Many people may believe that Oregon City High School has a minor drug problem. However, the school resource officer from the school, Officer David Plumber, has said otherwise. There is indeed fentanyl in the high school, Plumber said. Plumber has been working with two girls in particular that have abused fentanyl at OCHS. He has been working with them for awhile, trying to get them into treatment as fast as possible. 

Officer Plummer’s primary concern is for the safety and well being of students in contact with this dangerous substance. Treatment is not a mandatory measure, so it is much more difficult to get these two girls help, Plumber said.  “I have to make sure that they are not alone with fentanyl, or they will die.”

“The biggest thing is making sure that the parents understand what's going on with both of these students battling fentanyl, so the parents will take more action in the treatment process rather than myself having to step in as much,” Plumber said. 

Officer Plumber says that the main drugs he sees used at Oregon City High School include nicotine and marijuana, with a couple fentanyl cases. Plumber said most students are doing drugs because of depression

“I think that one of the biggest challenges is that there isn’t enough awareness through parents about this problem,” Plumber said.

A lot of students that are dealing with depression are also dealing with suicide. Plumber believes that there could be an improvement in the school district's process of handling drug abuse, depression, and suicide. “If I can make the parents aware of the struggles that their students are experiencing, it would make it easier for students to get treatment,” Plumber said.

“We don’t want to punish students with extreme drug addictions, we just want to help them get treatment,” Plumber said.

In Oregon City alone, the use of drugs has been increasing. Plumber said this has led to 10 police officers either quitting or moving away to different cities in the last year.

Officer Plumber said drugs continue to infest the schools in Oregon and it will only get worse.