For the third time since 2009, a St. Louis family is dealing with the loss of a loved one from a heroin overdose.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 23-year-old Tyler Athanas died Wednesday at his grandmother's home, where he was living. He was in his bedroom and wasn't responding. His brother, Nick, forced open Tyler's bedroom door and found him. He was pronounced dead from an apparent overdose.
"I can't believe it," said his grandmother, Carol Athanas. "He was my little buddy."
Tyler's father, Tom Athanas, 42, died from an overdose in 2009. Tom's son and Tyler's brother, 29-year-old Tommy Athanas, died in his grandmother's basement in June.
Nick Athanas, 27, said he has also struggled with addiction but has been clean of opioids since he went to jail two years ago.
"He's all we have left," Carol Athanas said of Nick.
The family was featured in a Post-Dispatch story Sunday about the heroin epidemic. More than 650 people died from opioid overdoses in the St. Louis region last year, which is more than four times as many as in 2007. The city of St. Louis reported 256 opioid deaths last year, blamed partly on the prevalence of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that arrived on the street in recent years.
Nick said Tyler was a high school dropout who had been using drugs since he was 15. He had been to rehab and struggled to find work and remain positive.
Relatives said emergency responders found heroin, a needle and spoon, and dozens of orange medicine containers of pills in his bedroom.
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