(To read the original story, visit oleantimesherald.com. Published June 10, 2018.)
OLEAN — As a group of family and friends gathered fistfuls of balloons to release into the sky above War Vets Park on Tuesday, Karen Materna was still scrambling a bit.
“Don’t let them go yet,” she called out. “I’ve got to finish this note.”
The note, written on yellow paper, was for her son Mathew Chaffee, on the one year anniversary of his death.
Chaffee died June 5, 2017, one among a string of Olean men who had overdosed within a days of each other. Those deaths sparked a vigil that brought 300 people to Lincoln Park, which included a makeshift memorial of photographs of those that have died from addiction, as well as a release of orange and purple balloons.
On Tuesday, a memorial of photographs were again hung, and balloons — red and black — poured into the sky.
“I love you baby,” said Chaffee’s mother, softly, as she watched her note float toward the heavens. “I love you, Matty Matts.”
Through this ritual, his family hopes to keep a piece of Chaffee alive, as well as remind Oleanders that addiction in the community still needs to be addressed.
Meghan Materna, Chaffee’s younger sister, said it’s been a rough year for the family, which includes her mom and her younger brother Michael.
“We’ve just been trying to push through it,” she said. “It’s still surreal to us. He was a great person and he had three beautiful kids, so we just want to keep his memory going … I want to do this every year for him.”
The tight-knit family seems to get through some of their struggles by supporting each other and remembering the good things — like Chaffee’s love of the rapper Eminem, and his great sense of humor. And they celebrate the legacy of his children — Amara, age 11, Alayna, age 6, and Peyton, age 6, who Materna said is the spitting image of his dad.
Meghan in particular holds on to the number 29, which signifies both the age of her brother at his death and “guardian angel,” according to Pastor Tyrone Hall of the Lighthouse Church in Olean, who presided over her Chaffee’s funeral.
“We call him our Angel 29,” she said. She has clothing where Angel 29 is emblazoned, as it was on his park memorial.
But his family all miss the simple things. Karen Materna still wishes she could do her son’s laundry, especially if that meant seeing him burst through her door with his loud, teasing jokes.
“It’s hard. It’s hard as a parent because,” Karen paused, tears coming to her eyes, “your kids aren’t supposed to go before you.”
WHILE THE DEATH toll of last year still looms over the community, officials said opioid overdose statistics seem to be leveling off.
There were a total of 11 heroin overdoses that lead to death in Cattaraugus County in 2017, according to provisional statistics from the county Department of Health. Before then, there were 10 deaths in 2016. The state’s department also registered 11 heroin/opioid overdose deaths in 2015 in the county.
Compare that to the three opioid overdose deaths that have been counted so far in 2018, according to Dr. Kevin Watkins, director of the county health department. Watkins said on Friday he had that day received another death certificate from January that showed fentanyl was the cause of death in one more county resident.
“That’s still three deaths too many for us, because these are preventable deaths,” Watkins said.
However, he also finds promising that the use by EMS, fire and police of the overdose antidote Narcan has also dropped. Narcan usage in 2015 was 42, climbing to 68 in 2016, down to 45 in 2017 and only 13 so far this year.
Also, as the county has pushed Drug Take Back Day events, Watkins said they have been collecting “hundreds of pounds” of extra prescription drugs. He also noted more drug providers are getting trained on cutting back opioid prescriptions, and local rehabilitation services are using medication-assisted treatment therapy more often for opioid users, which he said is far more effective for recovery.
“This is all helping us,” he said.
Watkins has been immersed in the topic since the county’s heroin/opioid task force was formed two years ago as heroin overdose deaths in the area were spiking. The group is comprised of more than two dozen agencies, including law enforcement, medical personnel, nonprofits, family members of addicts and former addicts.
It’s been at that task force were he has heard positive reports from the Southern Tier Regional Drug Task Force about pulling more heroin and other drugs off the street, and from the Council on Addiction Recovery Services (CAReS) as members build a new facility with 20 treatment beds in Westons Mills in addition to their adjacent 16-bed CAReS treatment facility for men.
“We really do feel a lot more positive now,’ Watkins said of the task force. “At one point, we couldn’t even find a rehab center for someone in the community.”
However, Watkins said he cannot clearly point to which of these efforts is making the biggest difference. His reasoning is all speculative.
There could be more fear-inducing factors at play, too.
Last year the Cattaraugus County District Attorney’s Office for the first time ever charged dealers with users’ deaths, including three Olean women with criminally negligent homicide, a class E felony, for allegedly selling fentanyl-laced heroin to three users who later fatally overdosed. Only one, Chelsea Lyons, 27, was convicted. She was sentenced in June to one to three years in state prison for her role in 42-year-old Matthew Harper’s February 2016 death.
Another deterrent could be the increase of heroin-laced fentanyl — the opioid responsible for most overdoses, as it can be 50 times more potent than heroin. However, Watkins offered that anecdotally, a user on the taskforce said education on fentanyl might not actually be a deterrent, as it would make them chase after the drug harder to feel a stronger high.
“We’re not sure of why we’re seeing the leveling off of opiod deaths in the county,” he said.
THE FAMILY KNOWS where Chaffee’s addiction started — a severe car accident at age 24.
“He ended up breaking the bone that connects your head to your neck, and a lot in his jaw,” Meghan Materna said. “We almost lost him then.”
He was prescribed opiods to handle the pain, and his mother said that first dose spiraled into him wanting “more and more and more.”
“I called his doctor and I said, ‘You give my kid pills again, I’ll report you.’ Because I didn’t want to have them any more,” Karen Materna said.
Cattaraugus County has one of the highest rates of opioid prescription in Western New York.
But later, she realized without a prescription, Mathew began turning to friends and experimenting with multiple drugs — everything from heroin to cocaine to meth. His sister said there wasn’t a drug Mathew wasn’t ready to try.
“I blame myself,” his mother said. “Everybody says I shouldn’t, but everytime he wanted money, everybody would just hand it over to him and he would say it was for food or something, but it wasn’t. So I was part of his addiction.”
Then Chaffee decided to get clean. His mother said he called her one day after he stopped taking pills.
“He said, ‘Ma, I think I’m having a heart attack.’ I said, ‘You’re not having a heart attack, you’re withdrawing.’”
She drove him to the Erie County Medical Center — where staff remembered him from his car accident — and then was able to secure a spot for him at a long-term rehabilitation facility.
He spent over six months in rehab, his family said. And then he died about two months later.
Meghan said she remembered how upset Mathew was to hear the passing of his buddy, Richard J. “Ricky” Cummings, who succumbed to his own addictions May 31, 2017. She said both grew up together and went to the same rehab.
“I remembered I looked at my brother’s Facebook page and when Ricky died, he wrote, ‘Man I don’t know what to say, I’m lost for words.’ And then five days later, Mathew’s gone.”
Chaffee’s overdose happened at a friend’s house, caused by being injected with a drug mix that his family said was more than 90 percent fentanyl, according to toxicology reports they received.
With Chaffee’s death, Karen Materna became a supporter of Winning Back Olean, even asking for memorials in Mathew’s name to be donated when he died. The organization formed in June 2016 to provide support for those struggling with addiction and is working to become a nonprofit organization. Shannon Scott, executive director of Winning Olean Back, was at Chaffee’s memorial Tuesday.
The family said they hope the memory of Mathew could serve as a cautionary tale to those tempted by drugs, and a warning to those facing addiction.
“I wish I could go to schools and talk,” Meghan Materna said, “because I feel like it’s just getting worse. It hasn’t happened a lot lately here, but when it was all happening (the victims) were just getting younger and younger.”
Even a year later, Meghan Materna is not satisfied with the resources allocated for educating youth to prevent addiction. And she thinks the stigma of who heroin addicts are is still holding strong.
“This needs to be taken a little bit more seriously than the police are taking it and what the community’s taking it,” she said. “People say, ‘Oh they’re scumbag druggies, screw them.’ No. They have a problem and an addiction, and it’s hard.”
WHEN ASKED IF the county has responded effectively enough to the need for preventing drug addiction, Watkins said plans are in the works to increase students’ access to drug education. A recent Community Health Assessment taken on by the county health department and Olean General Hospital highlighted drug prevention as a priority, and decided to bolster CAReS adolescent programs in area schools by funding three drug educator positions instead of one.
“I believe that should happen in September,” he said. “Then we’ll be able to get more drug educators in the school.”
He also said the state has just begun to release more funding to address heroin and opioid addiction services.
“It takes resources to get this done in a timely manner,” he said.
In the meantime, another threat has been raised — officials at the May county heroin/opioid task force meeting said the stagnation of the heroin epidemic has led to an increase in use of meth, cocaine and crack cocaine.
As of early April, five alleged meth labs had been discovered in five city apartment buildings and a total of 11 people have been charged over the last five months. Since December, there have been three fires at three city apartments that allegedly housed meth labs. The latest fire occurred March 28, as a tenant of 119 Irving St. was charged with making meth hours after a fire caused the entire building to be demolished.
Additionally, the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office charged two Olean residents March 29 at a Microtel Inn & Suites in Allegany after responding to a noise complaint and instead reportedly stumbling upon a small methamphetamine lab.
Also, in what Olean police called one of the city’s largest drug busts of the last few years, 10 people were rounded up March 8 to face drug-related charges following a search of two homes simultaneously that allegedly netted almost five ounces of cocaine valued at roughly $14,500, as well as $3,137 in cash.
Watkins said deaths directly caused by drugs are down, but he admitted these new drugs present new problems to deal with.
“Now this is a whole different dimension in seeing the rise of other drugs, so that’s not something (the heroin/opioid task force) might be asked to look at — maybe we might in the future.
“But at the same time, that’s definitely on our radar, because it’s important to stay vigilant in our community.”
(Contact City Editor Danielle Gamble at dgamble@oleantimesherald.com. Follow her on Twitter, @OTHGamble)
Danielle Gamble 