Purple is the color for opioid awareness, and on the last day of August, purple flooded First Baptist of Lexington in honor of friends and family who have been lost to the opioid epidemic.

The Lexington Overdose Fatality Review Committee and other law enforcement agencies hosted Overdose Awareness Day Aug. 31, offering a safe space for those affected by overdoses as well as memorial to their deceased loved ones.

Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher spoke at the event, choking over her words as she recalled meeting many families in the room when she worked cases involving their loved ones. 

“If you have not been affected by someone who has overdosed or has lost their life to an overdose, you will, it's inevitable,” Fisher said. “I have and I know people don't really understand what you guys go through until it happens to them.”

Fisher has served as coroner for Lexington County for nearly nine years, and she said she couldn’t recall how many overdose cases she’s worked, only that she knew it was too many.

“Every one of those cases affects us,” Fisher said. “It affects the law enforcement officers that respond, it affects the EMS workers. There's no way to tell you, we've done hundreds. … If we had a luminary for every case we worked, you wouldn't have stage involved.”

The Lexington County Sheriff's Department, the local alcohol and drug abuse authority LRADAC and the Overdose committee provided resources and Narcan nasal sprays to those who attended the event.

“The Overdose Fatality Review is a committee that is made up of county agencies and organizations and their job is to identify gaps in services and/or look at trends for where some kind of interventions or solutions might be able to occur,” said Pam Imm, a community psychologist who works with LRADAC and serves as board chair for The Courage Center.

The review has been meeting since April of 2021. Officials review two cases during each meeting to identify and learn more about the case. 

“We review two cases each time and everybody goes around and basically tells us if they'd seen that person,” Imm said. “So did mental health see them? Did LRADAC see them? Were they ever arrested? And it kind of gives us a level of detail about what was happening with that person.”

The review is why some actions have been taken. 

A Narcan vending machine was added to the Lexington County Detention Center in March early this year. The machine provides free Narcan to those who are being released from jail. Imm cited Narcan as a reversal spray that could mean life or death.

“When people leave, they can get Narcan for free, all they have to do is press a button, and the Narcan comes out,” she said.

The placement of the machine was a victory for the review and its mission to recommend solutions to overdose. 

“One of the reasons that this is important is that the OFR began to see that the people we were looking at, that we were reviewing, frequently had just been getting out of prison or jail and then were overdosing,” Imm said.

She added that the decrease in fatalities isn’t just because of the review, but it’s because of South Carolinians working together to spread awareness and stop the flow of opioids. 

“I think it’s a variety of things, I think people are becoming more aware of fentanyl and the dangers of that and hopefully talking to their children and telling them not to take something that somebody gives you,” Imm told the Chronicle. “I think physicians are prescribing less opioids so there's not as many out there.”

Lexington County requested more than $2 million in funds to address the opioid epidemic in the county. 

These funds will go to fight and raise awareness of opioid overdose, including similar projects such as the Narcan vending machine. 

Despite the tragedy and the mourning done by everyone who attended, there was a hopeful air around the room.

The event wasn’t just about the awareness of those who have lost their lives to opioids but it was for the families who carry on after a life-changing event. 

“It's an honor to reflect and experience a collective and very personal impact,” said Sara Goldsby, director of the state Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services. 

Overdose Awareness Day takes place annually Aug. 31, and the Lexington County event will be held again next year and the year after that, Imm said. 

“We would love for people to come out and support the families,” she offered. “They really do benefit and heal from seeing the community support them because it can be very isolating and, you know, it's a stigma kind of. It’s stuff people don't want to talk about.”