TRAGIC LOSS
Mercer County undersheriff’s son dies of apparent overdose >>
TRENTON » Pedro “Petey” Medina, the son of Mercer County undersheriff Pedro Medina, has died from a drug overdose, sources said.
Trenton Police is probing the circumstances that led to the overdose of the younger Medina, 33, who was taken to St. Francis Medical Center after cops were called out to a home on the 800 block of Park Avenue in the early-morning hours Saturday.
Cops wouldn’t confirm the identity of the overdose victim, but sources identified him as Medina’s son.
The younger Medina was given a shot of the opioid overdose reversal medication Narcan, sources said, and transported to the hospital in critical condition.
The undersheriff didn’t respond to messages left with him but discussed his son’s condition in a Facebook post before he died.
“Only a miracle can bring back my son,” the elder Medina wrote over the weekend. “Please keep praying. The Bible says when two or more come in agreement to ask for something and is done in the name of Jesus. Be ready for God’s blessings. God is good. No matter what, I trust the Lord.”
The younger Medina appears to have died sometime Tuesday, according to Facebook posts family and friends made mourning his passing.
“My son is in God’s arms,” the elder Medina wrote in a thread under a Facebook post shortly before 2 p.m.
Sources said cops are looking into whether the younger Medina may have gotten a bad batch of heroin, cut with an unspecified substance.
The state has a law on the books on strict liability in drug-induced deaths where dealers can be held responsible if they sell drugs that lead to someone’s death, but officials said such a case in Mercer County hasn’t been pursued in years.
The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office last year issued a warning about a brand of dope called “Lexus Rad” that was believed to be laced with other drugs following a spike in heroin overdoses.
Dr. Indra Cidambi, the medical director at Center for Network Therapy in Middlesex and an expert on opioid addiction, said she has seen a trend of heroin being cut with several substances, such as synthetic opioids fentanyl and the trendier carfentanil.
Carfentanil is often used as an elephant tranquilizer and is 100 stronger than fentanyl and 10,000 times stronger than morphine, a painkiller often administered to patients in hospitals, Cidambi said.
The doctor said the synthetic opioid is “extremely lethal” but preferred by users because it increases the euphoria of the drug when combined with heroin.
Lacing and cutting heroin are common tactics employed by users and drug dealers to amplify the effects of the drugs and stretch the quantities, Cidambi said. Many times users are unaware what the drugs are being cut with, the doctor said.
When heroin is combined with powerful synthetic opioids, Cidambi said, it can diminish the efficacy of naxolone, an overdose reversal medication used by first responders. The reversal drug must be administered within a short time frame to have an effect, the doctor said, adding naxolone is “not the answer” to solving the drug epidemic.
New Jersey had 2,221 overdose deaths in 2016, according to the Office of the State Medical Examiner. Fifty-nine of those were in Mercer County, and more than half were from heroin, the data shows.
There have already been 708 suspected overdose deaths and more than 2,100 naxolone administrations since the start of the year, according to NJCares, the AG’s real-time website that tracks overdose deaths.
Cidambi encounters users who are so hooked to opioids they’re “not afraid of dying. It’s mind-boggling to watch patients go through what they go through.”
Petey – as he was affectionately known – was described by friends and family as having a big heart and an infectious smile. He survived being stabbed in the chest by Edwin Romano outside a Chambers Street gas station in 2012. Cops at the time said the knife narrowly missed Petey’s heart.
The younger Medina in a Facebook post on the morning he overdosed complained of back pain that kept him from doing martial arts. He posted pictures of himself with an instructor and working out in his white garb on blue mats.
“This back injury is keeping me off the mats and is driving me nuts,” he wrote that morning, according to the Facebook timestamp.
Petey talked about dealing with chronic pain and repeated emergency room visits in several Facebook posts.
“I hate coming to these hospitals in Trenton,” he wrote April 10, 2016. “They deal with so many idiots who come in trying to get a fix. They treat everyone like they are in here for a fix, and those who are in pain suffer because of the actions of others. Makes no sense.”
Under the post, he wrote, “Like you should have seen the way the doctor was talking to me like I was a junkie.”
He also linked to a video about addiction on his Facebook page earlier this month and stated he was dealing with stress.
“To all you people who need to learn about addiction, watch this. #disease,” he wrote.