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It’s been a week of heartbreak for family and friends of Adria Bosshart, the latest victim of fentanyl in Saskatoon.
Bosshart died of an overdose last weekend, a day before her 19th birthday.
“My Grandma Janice called to tell me, but I thought she was joking at first,” said Jordyn Wilkinson, Bosshart’s cousin.
“Nobody was expecting this to happen to Adria, I felt empty and depressed.”
Wilkinson said the loss has been even harder on Bosshart’s parents.
“Her mom is not doing good, she keeps remembering the last phone call she had with Adria, four days before her death,” Wilkinson said. “Her dad is completely destroyed.”
Wilkinson said she didn’t know Adria was using fentanyl, an opioid drug several times more potent than morphine.
“I knew she partied, but I didn’t think she was using that drug,” she said. “My Grandma told me Adria came to her to say she had to stop using the hard drugs, but I thought she meant ecstasy.”
Wilkinson said she hopes people will stop using the potentially deadly drug.
“It’s like playing Russian roulette with your life,” she said. “I just hope this will stop.”
Nikita Merasty, a friend of Bosshart’s, described her as having a smile that could light up a room.
“She was always so happy and that’s what I loved about her,” she said. “It really broke my heart because she was so young.”
Merasty said fentanyl needs to be taken off the streets.
“It’s killing so many innocent people and now people are mixing it with other drugs, which is so stupid,” she said.
Bosshart’s funeral is at 2:00 p.m. Saturday at the Park Funeral Home in downtown Saskatoon.
Paramedics seeing rise in overdoses
MD Ambulance spokesperson Troy Davies said overdose calls due to fentanyl have been going up over the last four years.
“It’s such a dangerous drug because it’s being made in basements and shacks,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re 16 or 29. Lots are using it because it’s being seen as a party drug,” he said.
-with files from Chris Carr.
