New Milford police report four overdoses in the first half of 2023

MILFORD — Two suspected overdose deaths over a single weekend has prompted a local advocate to call for the community to double down on investing in recovery services

Tony Morrissey, who cofounded an opioid awareness foundation after the overdose death of his stepson, said the community must come up with “better ways to manage the crisis moment.”

“I think we just need to keep going and continuously challenge ourselves at how we can get better at this,” Morrissey said.

Lt. Lee Grabner said the New Milford Police Department reported two deaths over Memorial Day weekend that are being investigated as overdose deaths. However, he said the actual cause of death is pending the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s investigation, and the final report can take up to six months.

Grabner said officers responded to the Homestead Inn on May 28 for an unresponsive male. Robert Krawczynski, 36, was found deceased. Grabner said officers responded to a home on Gaffney Road on May 29 where Bryan Gundel,

39, was found deceased.

“This year, the New Milford Police Department has had four suspected overdose deaths,” Grabner said. “All are still pending the OCME (Office of the Chief Medical Examiner) report. The last reported Narcan use was on May 15. In that case, a 45-year-old female was taken to New Milford Hospital and she survived.”

Morrissey raised awareness about a “spike” in overdoses in New Milford on the “New Milford, CT” Facebook page, yet Grabner said New Milford police haven’t seen a spike in the number of deaths related to overdoses this year comlies pared to other years.

“We aggressively investigate every overdose death with the hope of identifying a suspect and making an arrest,” Grabner said. “All of the overdoses are still open investigations and we work closely with the Litchfield State’s Attorney to try and prosecute these cases.”

Morrissey said overdoses are something he and his wife Tracey take very personally after losing their son Brian Cody Waldron to an overdose at the age of 20. Their son’s death motivated the couple to create the nonprofit Brian Cody’s Brothers & Sisters Foundation in 2019 to raise awareness, help struggling famiNEW and connect people to resources, Morrissey said.

“Since losing our son, we’ve learned that not only is this a national epidemic but the epidemic is quite present in New Milford,” Morrissey said. “As we’ve started to look at our son’s peer group, we realized we’re close to a dozen of his peers that have passed away in the town of New Milford.”

Morrissey said he learns about local overdoses from his nonprofit’s network of providers as well as from families and peers. He said he and his wife are proud of what they’ve accomplished thus far but would like to see better results and outcomes.

“Our results aren’t that great when somebody is in a crisis moment needing recovery services,” Morrissey said. “When we go to our local hospital, we tend to not get a long-term plan but a short-term measure so we resort to having to cart people to other providers across the state.”

Morrissey said while there are other recoveryfriendly hospitals across the state, there needs to be more organizations, hospitals and clinical settings that will provide a continuum of care.

Since Brian Cody’s Brothers and Sisters Foundation began, Morrissey said he’s seen advances in the New Milford community geared toward treatment and recovery, such as the opening of a New Milford location for Apex Community Care and several “top notch” sober homes.” Yet Morrissey said the community needs more resources as overdoses cases continue to grow.