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Despina Prodromidis, of Yonkers, recently sat down with actress Jada Pinkett Smith on her streaming show, Red Table Talk, for an episode centered around the national fentanyl epidemic.
(View a clip of the segment below)
Through tears, Prodromidis recounted the unimaginable moment on Easter 2021 when doctors informed her that her 15-year-old daughter, Olivia Green, had died after taking a counterfeit Percocet.
"I was like, 'Is Olivia okay?' and they just put their heads down," Prodromidis says in the clip.
"And they shook their heads and said, 'we're sorry, we tried everything.'"
She told the panel she had never heard the word 'fentanyl' before.
"I know what the word 'overdose' means, you abuse drugs. We're not talking about the same Olivia. My Olivia is a little girl... she doesn't use drugs," Prodromidis said.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that experts say is similar to morphine, but is 80 to 100 times stronger. It's used in hospitals to treat pain during and after surgery.
But the drug is also abused, with many drug dealers adding it to heroin or disguising it as common prescription drugs like Percocet, leading to a growing number of overdose deaths across the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In 2020, the National Institute on Drug Abuse said there were more than 56,500 overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl.
Green was a freshman at Riverside High School in Yonkers when she died. She dreamed of becoming a marine biologist, her mother said.
Prodromidis said an adult influenced the girl to take the counterfeit pill that ultimately claimed her life.
"Her life is gone forever and Olivia is nothing but a memory now, which breaks my heart every day," she said.
She's hoping that by telling her daughter's story she'll convince others to think twice before taking pills and hopefully prevent future fentanyl-related deaths.
In the meantime, she’s started a petition on Change.org calling on New York lawmakers to pass tougher penalties for those who supply drugs to those who die from overdoses.
More than 26,000 people have signed the online petition so far.
"There will be thousands and thousands of other families who will lose their loved one next from fentanyl poisoning and your loved one deserves justice," reads the petition.
The episode of Red Table Talk also features interviews with the nephew of actor Michael K. Williams, who died from a drug overdose involving fentanyl, and with comedian Kate Quigley.
Quigley discussed being the lone survivor of a fentanyl poisoning that killed three of her friends in 2021, including fellow comedian Fuquan Johnson.
The episode, titled Fentanyl: An Urgent Warning for All, will stream Wednesday, May 18, at 12 p.m. ET on Facebook Watch.
View a clip of the segment below:
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