VALPARAISO | There have been 66 heroin-related deaths in Porter County over the past five years. Just in the last 10 days there have been two drug overdose deaths and three "saves" by the Porter County Sheriff's officers using the opiad reversal drug Naloxone.
"It's ongoing," Sheriff David Reynolds said. "Everyone knows we have a problem but I don't think everyone understands the degree of how serious it is."
Which is why the Sheriff's Department has produced a video to educate parents and their children about the crisis.
"Heroin: Not A Problem, An Epidemic," allows viewers to see first-hand how heroin destroys lives. Reynolds, Porter County Coroner Chuck Harris and parents of children in Porter County are featured in the video, which was unscripted. The majority of inmates currently in Porter County are there based on crimes directly related to heroin abuse.
Several are featured in the video, including Katie Hoekstra, who said she's been in jail many times but usually only had to "sit a little bit or I've been bonded out."
"This time I'm sentenced to a year," she said.
Hoekstra says in the video that heroin is easy to get in Porter County or in Valparaiso.
"It's normally just a phone call or Facebook message away," she said.
Hoekstra, 27, said she got good grades, was athletic and a prom queen.
"I was that person driven to do something and be somebody in life and not sitting in Porter County Jail and watching my children grow up on visiting screens and pictures."
Hoekstra said her 3-year-old daughter saved her life one time from an overdose.
"She got on the phone and called my neighbor and said 'my mommy's sleeping and won't wake up.'"
Fellow inmate Christian Ennard, a graduate of Valparaiso High School, said he was introduced to heroin when he was 17 and has been to jail 17 times.
"Like the sheriff said, it's an epidemic and it's taking over," Ennard said. "People in high school I smoked weed with who said they'd never do anything other than this - half of them are dead from heroin use. The other half are still addicted right now."
Ennard said if he knew what the outcome would have been from heroin use he would have said, "I don't want to be there."
"I want to be 23 years old and going to college and starting a career," he said.
One South Haven father in the video who lost his son to a heroin overdose death said "it's the worst thing in the world to lose a child."
"Had it been a car accident or something like that I think it would have been more understanding," he said. "But knowing he was using drugs and knowing there was a possibility he could be one of the casualties in Porter County was horrible."
Reynolds said he hopes parents will see the video and realize there is a problem, or epidemic, in Porter County.
"These kids don't have something sticking out in the middle of their foreheads," he said. "They're just normal-looking kids who don't really want to be in jail."
Reynolds said he thinks a change will have to come from the young adults themselves.
"We have to get more kids saying they're not doing it," he said. "We're never going to eliminate it but we have to eliminate the fact we're having so many of these heroin overdoses. Two things are going to happen if you do heroin. You're either going to die or go to jail."