Vancouver Sun

A talented young university student overdosed in a residence hallway surrounded by her fellow students and then a medical team. Yet everybody and everything that might have saved her life failed. Her parents wanted to know why. They fought to obtain records that detailed the final moments of their daughter’s life. A journalist for the Vancouver Sun, Lori Culbert, got involved, and wrote a story with such passion, power and grace that it made us stare into the human cost of an overdose epidemic that we tried to ignore. She showed us that it wasn’t only poor people dying of overdoses alone in dark alleys. It could happen to anyone. The reaction to this story was immediate and far-reaching. The British Columbia government promised to pay for easier-to-administer nasal naloxone, the overdose-reversing drug, instead of a cheaper option; instructed post-secondary institutions to install naloxone kits in every campus building; and provided portable kits at every event. Campus first responders and the 911 service updated their training on drug overdoses. High-school students across B.C. are now required to take CPR training. Educators in other provinces took notice and are beginning to follow suit. This story continues to make a difference.