Thirty-eight-year-old Joseph Gregg wasn’t only the man whom friends abandoned in the 200 block of South 14th Street, his body rolled up in nylon and set out on the sidewalk after he died of a heroin overdose.
He was a son, a brother, a loved one.
Surviving family members like Gregg’s are the focus of Sunday’s International Overdose Awareness Day in Columbian Park.
The event aims to offer community support to friends and family who have lost loved ones to overdoses. It also is an effort to reduce the social stigma associated with such deaths.
“It doesn’t affect just that person,” Lafayette police Lt. Tim Payne said. “It affects the family and the community.
“Families are devastated by drug overdose and death.”
This year, more than in years past, Tippecanoe County families have received the news that their loved one overdosed.
Counting accidental and suicide overdose deaths, 22 people perished during the first seven months of this year, according to Tippecanoe County Deputy Coroner Matt Wietbrock.
That means the community is on track to surpass last year’s decade-high 32 overdose deaths.