The news anchor shared his daughter's fentanyl overdose to raise awareness

On May 16, Emily, 21-year-old Angela Kennecke's daughter, died of an overdose of fentanyl.

After the death of her daughter, Kennecke, who works as a television news anchor on Keloland, a subsidiary of CBS in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, took time off work.

But on September 5, she recounted her daughter's story, "personally pleading to end the stigma surrounding addiction and a call to action regarding the opioid crisis."

"I've never wanted a member of my family to become a member of the statistics you hear in the evening news," she began reporting on Keloland. "Nobody does it, and there is no recovery for me or my family, Emily, my talented, intelligent and beautiful daughter."

"My choice, even at personal risk, is to share my daughter's story with you all," Kennecke said. "The reason I'm doing this is that my only hope facing such a devastating loss is that Emily's story – my family's personal tragedy – can be a catalyst for change."

In a longer story on the Keloland website, Kennecke wrote that his family had scheduled an intervention for Saturday, May 19 – but his daughter overdosed three days ago. According to her autopsy report, Emily had six times the therapeutic dose of fentanyl for an adult man in her body at the time of her death.

Kennecke decided to share the story of his daughter because of the way she integrates into the epidemic of opioids.

In South Dakota in particular, there were 69 overdoses. in 2016, according to the CDC. Preliminary estimates from the CDC show that 72,000 people died from overdoses in the United States in 2017.

Kennecke ended his show with a call for action.

"We need to find better, more affordable ways to treat addiction, and we need to abolish the stigma that prevents many people from asking for help, including my daughter," she said. "If 72,000 people die each year from another cause, we would unite to put an end to the suffering of so many families, so many mothers."

As a result of Emily's passing, Kennecke created a fund called Emily's Hope to help people access treatment.

If you have an addiction and would like treatment, call the 24/7 free national help line from the Addiction and Mental Health Services Administration at 800-662-HELP.

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