Not afraid to speak up: Harold Travioli's son, Travis Travioli, died from an overdose in Dec. of 2020 and Harold wants to spread awareness of the dangers of drug use. Here, Harold holds a photo of Travis at his home in rural Edgar County on Wednesday. The photo was taken during a fishing trip in 2016. Staff photo by Joseph C. Garza
Not afraid to speak up: Harold Travioli's son, Travis Travioli, died from an overdose in Dec. of 2020 and Harold wants to spread awareness of the dangers of drug use. Here, Harold holds a photo of Travis at his home in rural Edgar County on Wednesday. The photo was taken during a fishing trip in 2016. Staff photo by Joseph C. Garza
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In just a few years of drug use, Travis Travioli went through homelessness, a bad relationship, jail, treatment and relapses.

After surviving one overdose in the fall of 2020, the 30-year-old did not survive another just after Thanksgiving.

A friend of his, Taylor Bradbury, had her own apartment and worked as a certified nursing assistant at a local senior living community. A former honor student, her father had no idea she was using anything that might take her life.

At 26 years old, Taylor died of an overdose in September.

The fathers of those two young people from the Wabash Valley don’t want any parent to feel what they’ve felt — and they are not alone in their grief.

Overdoses rise

An increase in overdose deaths in Vigo County is being attributed in part to the COVID-19 pandemic with its mental stress and social isolation.

In 2020, the Vigo County Coroner’s Office recorded 28 overdose deaths — all from opioids. The age of the victims range from 23 to 69 years.

In 2019, overdose deaths totaled 17 in Vigo County.

So far in 2021, two men and one woman have died of opioid overdose, the coroner’s office reported this week. All of those deaths occurred in January. Another two deaths may be overdosed, with the coroner’s office awaiting toxicology results.

The increase is in line with a national trend reported in December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There’s definitely an increase in people reporting increased stress and isolation and lack of connection because of the impact of COVID-19,” said Tasha Newcomb, executive director of addiction and substance abuse services at Hamilton Center.

While most statistical data has a lag time of at least a year before it is confirmed, staff at Hamilton Center are seeing the real-time effect of the national health emergency on a population that often struggles during the best of times. About six to nine months into the pandemic and its social distancing the requests for support from the recovery community were definitely increasing.

“None of us expected the impact it has had” on mental health and addiction, Newcomb said of COVID-19. “We thought it would be short-term.”

Without the social connection, support systems and structured routines that keep people on track and focused in recovery, navigating daily life — stressful enough before the pandemic — can become even more difficult, she said.

That means relapses and increased substance use become more likely.

Two fathers speak out

Harold Travioli mourns the death of his son Travis on Dec. 8, 2020, due to a fentanyl overdose days earlier.

Travioli said his son began using drugs three years ago. During that time, he went through homelessness, a bad relationship, jail, treatment programs and relapses. Just three days after getting out of jail in August 2020, Travis overdosed on heroin.

Travioli, his girlfriend and medics were able to revive the young man using four nasal sprays and one injection of the antidote naloxone.

But weeks later, on Thanksgiving weekend, Travioli again found his son during an overdose. Three nasal sprays didn’t revive him, and help arrived too late.

“He was just too far gone when I found him,” the grieving father said. “I always checked on him in the middle of the night. But that time, he was just too far gone.”

Travioli made the hard decision to remove his son from life support in early December, and he passed shortly thereafter.

Travioli said he used to be embarrassed by his son’s drug use. But since the young man’s death, he has reached out to other parents of young people experiencing the same substance use struggle.

“I don’t want a parent to go through what I’ve gone through,” he said. “It’s the most devastating thing in the world.”

Cory Bradbury knows that pain.

Bradbury lost his daughter Taylor to an overdose in September. He said he had no idea his daughter, who had been an honor student and loved to sing, was using any substance that could kill her.

“It was a big shock,” he said. “The whole situation was completely unlike Taylor.”

The young woman was friends with Travis Travioli through his girlfriend, who was the sister of Taylor’s boyfriend. Bradbury said he feels his daughter’s friends played a part in getting her involved in drug use.

The toxicology report for Taylor showed fentanyl as the drug that killed her.

“She had nothing in her blood except the poison that killed her,” Bradbury said of the extremely powerful synthetic opiod.

He found out about his daughter’s death when police knocked at his door early Sept. 12. Taylor’s boyfriend had reported her overdose, Bradbury said, with the boyfriend admitting to police the couple had been using drugs earlier in the evening before she collapsed.

Bradbury said he is frustrated the boyfriend was not held accountable for his daughter’s death.

Not easy to prosecute

Indiana’s laws, however, do not make it easy to criminally charge people who are involved in another person’s overdose death, said Vigo County prosecutor Terry Modesitt.

Lawmakers have chosen to promote “life over law” by encouraging people in overdose situations to call for help rather than escaping arrest by leaving a person to die. Immunity from prosecution, legislators reasoned, could result in more people being treated for overdose, whether from alcohol or drugs.

“We support the many efforts to encourage recovery from substance use disorder in our community,” Modesitt said. “The number of overdoses, the majority of which are opioid-related, are a concern for hospitals, law enforcement and certainly the friends and family of those that have experienced an overdose.

“Indiana has recognized these issues and has been passing and amending laws regularly over the last five or so years to address these issues,” the prosecutor said.

Indiana law regarding drug overdose deaths requires prosecutors to trace the origin of drugs involved in an overdose from an original point of sale, which can be difficult at best. For example, one friend who buys the drugs from a dealer, and then shares the drugs with another friends, is not considered the original point of sale.

In Vigo County, the prosecutor’s office has asked the violent crimes and drug task force units of city and county police to look for evidence at scenes that could lead to identifying the manufacturer or dealer of the substance that caused deadly overdoses. The hope is to connect the drug dealing with the death.

“While we have had multiple investigations of this nature, to date we have been unable to develop enough evidence to prosecute someone under this statute,” Modesitt said.

Calls for service

Another way to examine the scope of the overdose problem is to look at ambulance runs.

Terre Haute Fire Department medics are frequently dispatched to reports of overdoses. In 2019, the department had 190 overdose calls, said Chief Jeff Fisher. Those calls were not just for heroin or opioids, but also for alcohol, amphetamine, other medications and unspecified drugs.

In 2019, all EMS runs totaled 7,768 with about 2.4% being a response to an overdose.

In 2020, THFD EMS responded to 183 overdose calls. Again, that was about 2.4% of all EMS responses.

Naloxone, the drug that provides a temporary reprieve from the effects of an overdose, was administered 60 times in 2019, EMS department records show.

In 2020, naloxone was administered 93 times. That is not necessarily on 93 different persons, however, since more than one dose may be required. Also, medics have often responded for the same person overdosing on different occasions.

Naloxone is specific to opioid overdoses only, and is not effective for other overdoses.

Glen Hall, THFD’s deputy chief of EMS, said administering naloxone is a standard part of the regimen for people showing signs of heroin overdose. Fortunately, the responders have not reached the point where they are using more naloxone than is available to them.

Vigo County 911 Director Vicki Oster said dispatchers (who do both city and county dispatching) probably handle at least one overdose call each day. She said “possible overdose” is a fairly common call.

A review of 2019 records for the Vigo County dispatch center shows 427 calls regarding overdoses, while 2020 showed 437 calls for overdoses.

Many of those calls will turn out to be something different, Oster said, but some other calls labeled as “breathing difficulty” or “unresponsive person” have an underlying cause of overdose.

If someone calls 911 to report a person is overdosing, Oster said, the dispatcher will ask about other issues, too, so that responding units will be prepared for the most serious condition upon arriving at the scene.
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