Veteran news anchor reports drug overdose of own daughter

A news anchor reported a deadly drug overdose at his own daughter, in a desperate call for an end to the opioid crisis.

South Dakota journalist Angela Kennecke, 52, spoke on KELO-TV, a subsidiary of CBS, where she worked 29 years last week to share the details of her daughter Emily's death in May.

Solemnly staring at the camera, she began her show: "We brought you a lot of stories about the opioid crisis, but now, the opioid epidemic has struck in a tragic and devastating way for me," he said. reported the Daily Mail.

"On May 16, my 21-year-old daughter Emily died of an overdose and her official cause of death was fentanyl poisoning."

Kennecke, who has two other children and a son-in-law, continued, "The loss of a child, especially in this sudden and shocking way, has turned my world upside down.

"I've never wanted someone in my family to be part of the statistics you hear in the evening news – no one does it – there is no recovery for me or my family, our beautiful and intelligent daughter, Emily.

"Instead, I have to go ahead and my only choice now is to know how I do it.

"My choice, even at personal risk, is to share my daughter's story with you all."

Emily, who was an artist, was found dead from a fentanyl overdose on May 18th. His mother planned an intervention for three days later.

Last week, Kennecke said she had never suspected that her daughter was abusing opioids, but that she had learned she was experimenting with drugs.

"It was soon obvious that all the drug culture was attractive to her." I was very worried as a mom.

"We saw Em a lot, she did not live with us – she was 21 years old – but the more time I spent with her before she died, the more I sounded in her head," she said.

The family hired an interventionist and made arrangements for Emily to be in rehab on May 20, but she died before she could ask for professional help for her.

"We did not have that chance, we did not have the chance to invest in real treatment, real help," she said.

Kennecke was stunned when she discovered the depth of dependence of her daughter, who also involved heroin use.

"When I discovered what she was doing, the cause was incredible for me … the fact that my daughter uses heroin and needles.

"My beautiful daughter, who was very privileged, had every chance in life to have a good life, she had taken this path, it was shocking for me," she said.

The pathologist said that Emily had more than six times the amount of fentanyl recommended for an adult man.

"She was just a little young woman, she had no chance, this fentanyl killed her almost instantly when she injected her," said her mother.

Kennecke said that she had decided to talk about her experience because it could happen to "any family".

"It's better if I tell my story and let everyone know what happened to my daughter because I think it could happen to anyone's daughter," she said. .

Its aim is to de-stigmatize dependency so that families can cope better and find "more effective and more affordable ways" for young people to seek treatment if they find themselves in this situation.

"The reason I am doing this is that my only hope for such a devastating loss is that Emily's story, the personal tragedy of my family, can be a catalyst for change.

"If 72,000 people die each year from another cause, we would unite to end the suffering of so many families, so many mothers," she said.

Kennecke launched a fund on behalf of his daughter to help people pay the cost of treatment. He's called Emily's Hope and can be accessed via this link.

"I want his life and his tragic death to give at least hope to someone else.

"By telling the story of Emiy and my story of loss, pain and suffering, I'm opening up – I'm vulnerable to our audience in a way that I do not know. have never known before.

"It's very important because if only one person hears me, if one person does one thing to save a life, then I do not care about a million defeatists or a million people who do not understand not.

"I just care about that mother that I can stop feeling the pain that I have," she says.

She added: "She had a risky behavior but she did not deserve to die, she was only 21 years old".

The reporter said she had no way of describing the loss she and her family had suffered with Emily's death, and that the "permanence" of Emily was devastating.

"Her chair is empty at the kitchen table.It's when it really hurts me to look on the other side and she's not there and she will never come back.

"It's the permanence … I was stolen from my daughter … I was just stolen."

"I consider myself a word builder, write to make a living every day, but there are no words to describe the devastation I feel at the loss of my daughter.

"There is nothing that can even come together to describe grief, sorrow and pain.

"And all the loss of what she could have been and if … As a mom, I have a hole in my heat that will always be there." She will never heal.

"I have other children that I love and a husband that I love and another family that I love, but no one and nothing can replace the loss of my eldest . "

Before returning to work last Wednesday, the mother presented Facebook with the decision as the "most difficult thing" of her career.