The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
THE OTHER EPIDEMIC
Branford woman seeks to raise awareness of fentanyl after death of nephew
The wind kicked up on the New Haven Green on last week, causing the tabs of paper on the airy, birdshaped Signature Sculpture to flutter and dance.
On one of those tabs was the signature of the nephew of Branford resident Mary Romano. Nicholas died of an accidental fentanyl overdose on April 19, 2020. He was 28.
Romano requested that Hearst Connecticut Media withhold her nephew’s last name.
“That’s why I’m here,” she said, standing near the sculpture, on the occasion of International Overdose Awareness Day. The sculpture, which was created by the New Haven design firm Atelier Cue, seeks to convey a “sense of freedom from the burden of disease,” as its plaque reads.
“If I can help one family from having to go through this, it’ll be worth it,” she said.
The event, billed “The Art of Hope, Health & Healing,” included 29 service providers offering resources like Narcan and Naloxone and information on harm reduction, and sharing the stories of loved ones lost.
In the aftermath of her nephew’s death, Romano said she reached out to Lisa Deane, founder of Demand ZERO, a nonprofit which has its sights set on stiffening the penalties for those dealing or supplying deadly drugs in New Haven and on the Shoreline.
She told Deane she needed to do something or, as she put it, “I’m just going to roll up into a ball.”
“Nicholas and I were very close, ever since he was a baby,” she said. “I was the fun aunt, and I just think he knew I loved him no matter what.”
Since then, she’s been helping Deane spread the message that, as she put it, “fentanyl kills.”
Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to public health agencies. While pharmaceutical fentanyl is prescribed to manage severe pain, illegally manufactured and sold fentanyl has claimed thousands of lives. In many cases, fentanyl is mixed with other drugs such as heroin or cocaine as well as pressed into other pills without the user’s knowledge.
Fiona Firine, among the event organizers, highlighted a survey in a July 2021 DataHaven study, “Overdose Data to Action,” of the Quinnipiack Valley Health District and New Haven.
The survey, of 54 people who overdosed, shows over two-thirds believed they overdosed on heroin and not fentanyl.
“It proved what I and others who lost children know to be true,” said Firine, who founded For Cameron after her son, Cameron Herr, died of an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2018, to destigmatize the disease of addiction, among other aims. “They did not buy fentanyl intentionally.”
That’s what happened with Nicholas, Romano believes. “He didn’t take it by choice, but by chance,” she said. “He had a disease, the disease of addiction, and he slipped, but he didn’t have to die. He didn’t want to die. He was so looking forward to his sister’s wedding. He was going to be an usher and he joked about how handsome he looked in his tuxedo.”
From the time he was in college, she said, he was in and out of rehab. Once, he overdosed, and survived. “I thought he would have learned his lesson,” she said.
No matter how bad it got, “it was always ‘it’s going to happen to the other person and not to me,’” she said. “He was just very naive about it.”
She was naive too, she said. “I was surprised when I heard,” she said. “I really thought he was eventually going to get better.”
When he passed away, “I didn’t realize how many lives he touched,” she said. “One person told me I wouldn’t have stayed at rehab if it wasn’t for him.”
“Mary is a warrior,” said Deane of DemandZERO, whose latest initiative is urging state and federal legislators to name fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction and those who traffic the deadly drug, terrorists. “She won’t back down.”
In addition to her work with DemandZERO, Romano is helping raise funds for Brian Cody’s Law, an organization dedicated to pushing legislation with the “ultimate goal of reducing the staggering death rates caused by opioids,” according to its website. In July 2020, she put up a billboard bearing a photo of Nicholas near Exit 51 on Interstate-95 North.
“He never thought it would happen to him,” it reads. “It happened to him. 4-19-20. Fentanyl Kills.”
“It might be a person I don’t know or never see or never meet that it reaches,” she said, as the wind whipped up again, “but I want to make sure Nicholas lived for a reason.”