A contest to increase opioid overdose awareness in Montgomery County features videos that are a “gut punch” look into the lives of high school and middle school students.
The theme running like a raw nerve through many of the 600 student videos submitted to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office “Speak Up, Save A Life” contest is stress. The stress of academics, the stress of life as a teenager, said Wheaton High School student Nathalie Gomez, who collaborated with Leidis Gutierrez Granado of Kennedy High School for a video titled “Find True Resilience.”
“She’s very stressed and she doesn’t know what to do,” Gomez said about a character in the video. “And she just wants something to ease and relieve all her stress.”
Chris Magnolia of the Magnolia Companies – heating, plumbing and cooling – said the Good Samaritan Fund, which donates the $4,000 prize money to the winners, is an outpouring from the hearts of those knew Matthew Loudon and Michael Pisarra, who both died from fentanyl overdoses in 2020.
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“It’s difficult for me to talk about,” Magnolia said. “I saw my best friend see his son come out of a house in a body bag.”
Finalist “You Have One Life Not Nine” by Erol Kalayoglu and Zachary Carter of Montgomery Blair High School looks at the dangers of illegally buying what dealers claim are over-the-counter drugs like Adderall.
“So many people don’t realize what is actually in the medication they’re taking if it’s not gotten from a pharmacy,” Kalayoglu said.
Health
“They should be getting it from a doctor and not from the street,” Carter said.
“We have a pact with every student in this community – if you’re in this kind of situation, we’re not going to prosecute you, because we value that life more than another prosecution,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said. “We only get a chance to save a person’s life one time. That’s that precious moment.”
Winners will be announced Saturday at the “Save a Student” summit at Walter Johnson High School.
