These are brief quotes from the August Quad City Times Series called "The Last Rung" by reporter Tom Loewy. His coverage of the collapse of a 6-story apartment building in Davenport on May 28, 2023, led him into an unknown world of extended-stay hotels that cater to people living on the margins - places where people are surviving (or not) from addiction, overdoses, and sex trafficking. Tom interviewed several people from One Eighty for this series; we share some of the highlights here.
From "They’re shooting for the moon.' Users' search for better high can be deadly" on Aug. 22, 2024
“Fentanyl is the single deadliest drug threat our nation has ever encountered,” (Moline Police Chief Darren) Gault said. “There is no doubt that fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances are on the rise in the Quad-Cities."
In a five-year span in Rock Island County, 116 people died from overdoses. Almost half of those deaths, a total of 65, were caused by heroin or fentanyl.
Iowa Health and Human Services provided death numbers from 2022 and 2023. Over the course of those two years in Scott County, a total of 63 people died from overdoses — 31 in 2022 and 32 in 2023.
The DEA document states fentanyl remains the primary driver behind the ongoing epidemic of overdose deaths in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 72,027 drug poisoning deaths from fentanyl in 2022.
From "The death rattle: Parents describe saving daughter from nearly fatal overdose" on Aug. 24, 2024
The morning of Feb. 13, 2017, started like most others for Chris Wood.
He was up early, getting ready for work. His daughter, Dakotah Smith, had been staying with him and his wife, Kay, for the last three months at their home in LeClaire after being released from jail.
Smith was addicted to heroin and did jail time in Scott County for theft related to her heroin habit.
"Dakotah was staying in the guest room in the basement, and she came upstairs and asked me if I was going to take a shower," Chris Wood said. "I said I was, so she went back downstairs and on my way to the shower down there, I thought I heard Dakotah snoring in her room."
As Chris Wood got ready for his shower, something about Smith's snoring didn't seem right.
"Something told me to check on her," he said. "I knocked on the door and called her name several times. There was no reply, so I opened the door. What I saw I'll never forget."
Smith was sprawled across the bed and her legs were dangling off one side. Her skin was a pale white and she was covered in sweat. There was an empty needle next to her.
"I was not there when Dakotah was born. Technically, I'm her stepfather, but I have always loved her. I wasn't there to see her first breaths," Chris Wood said. "But I was there to see her last. I saw her die."
Smith was not dead. Her breaths were coming in one-to-two-minute intervals and were ragged. Heroin users have a name for the sound: a death rattle.
Dakotah Smith survived the overdose. Today she is 33 years old and has been clean for seven years.
She first tried heroin when she was 19.
"I did it with some people I knew, people from the drug scene," she said. "But that was a one-time thing. I thought heroin was so dirty and so gross. I told everyone, especially myself, that I would never be an IV drug user.
Like others interviewed for this series, Smith explained that for drug users, the first high is always the best. Every time a person uses after that is an attempt to find that original high.
"Heroin addicts will hear about someone overdosing, someone dying from a batch, and that's the heroin you want," she said. "You're just looking to get that first high back.
"But you never do.
Smith said opioid addiction leads to three outcomes: rehabilitation, prison or death.
Smith found her way out. Today she is the director of operations for One Eighty, an intensive, faith-based rehabilitation program in Davenport that works with adult addicts.
She is a recovering addict who helps others find recovery.
Read more of Dakotah's story here or watch a video of her story here.
From "Editorial: The Last Rung illuminated the shadows in the Quad-Cities" on Aug. 31, 2024 by the Quad City Times Editorial Staff
The Last Rung sought to show faces and amplify voices, reveal their humanity through the telling of their stories. They are us, part of our Quad-Cities community. Like us, each has a different story, and many are trapped by drug use, the lack of means to secure housing or to overcome felony convictions to earn a living wage. They are often manipulated by their circumstance.
Those on the front lines of these battles – first responders, police, medics, staff and volunteers working at shelters, food banks and places of rehabilitation such as One Eighty in Davenport – know what we’re up against. They helped us shine a light on these challenges.
While the stories of The Last Rung are full of despair, we found some inspiration.
Haunted by the overdose deaths of three friends, Kathleen Locke became a paramedic in November 2023 and now works for Medic EMS in Davenport, among other things, supplying naloxone to drug overdose victims. That's the life-saving treatment that her three friends did not receive.
Dakotah Smith overdosed one morning in 2017 and is alive only because her parents, who are trained paramedics, discovered her and kept her alive until an ambulance arrived. Today she is the director of operations for One Eighty, an intensive, faith-based rehabilitation program in Davenport that works with people who use drugs.
These women are a testament to the buoyancy of the human spirit. Weighed down by trauma, they found a way to help others. And that lesson may resonate as much as any: helping others can lift us out of our own misfortune and unhappiness.
Now that we seen the faces and heard the voices and better understand the challenges of people in the margins, what do we do? Maybe the solution is the reverse of "death by a thousand cuts." Maybe it's a thousand helping hands working across the spectrum to remove obstacles and help people climb up from the last rung of the ladder. "Life by a thousand hands."
Here are some possible ways we can make a difference.
We're encouraged by efforts in the Quad-Cities to provide more affordable and low income housing, such as the 46 apartments recently approved for tax credits at the Annie Wittenmyer complex in Davenport. As this series showed, the trajectory of people's lives is stunted when they cannot afford secure housing. It tethers them to lives that can't see past today. Much more affordable housing is needed.
Finding pathways for people with felony records to find gainful employment would give people in the margins a second chance to lead a productive life. Too often, a felony conviction prevents employers from hiring them. We can't afford to write people off. The drug court system is evidence that rehabilitation can restore people to live productive lives. And that helps us all.
Helping, financially or by volunteering, at any of the many agencies that serve people in the margins is money and energy well spent. Every life helped is a step forward, and it will require a multitude.
Another issue that arose during the series is the availability of naloxone. This antidote to opioid overdose has saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives in recent years. It should be available everywhere 24/7.
Finally, those who are clinging to the last rung often are disconnected from their friends and families. As Dakotah Smith explained, heroin users form small communities where it feels like a second family. But those ideas of family and loyalty in the drug scene are an illusion.
"The bonds don't hold up," she told us.
That makes family and friends even more important. We've seen those bonds save lives, or turn lives around. Our bonds elevate us in our families, neighborhoods, workplaces and in our communities.
Let's make new friends and check in on old friends and family members. Are they OK? Could they use a meal, a conversation, a helping hand?
Now that we've seen the challenges, we can begin to help raise these fellow Quad-Citians from the last rung.
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