LYNCHBURG, Va. – As a fentanyl crisis hits the nation, families affected are trying to raise awareness of the deadly drug.
A new billboard created by “Rachel’s Angels” along Fifth Street in Lynchburg displays 20 victims who died from fentanyl, 11 of them local.
Tara Witt lost her son Donnie Korona to fentanyl in 2021.
The Lynchburg man was an addict in recovery, but during a relapse took a bad batch of drugs.
“I had a counselor that I had to call after it happened,” Witt said. “She said I can’t believe that it happened to him. He was the one that I wasn’t worried about.”
That’s something mother Tekla Johnson would say about her son 31-year-old Julian Ross also from Lynchburg.
She said he worked a lot and only used drugs recreationally before he died.
“He didn’t necessarily struggle with drugs, and that’s part of why I’m doing it,” Johnson said. “The stigma needs to be ended because they’re not all so called junkies, or whatever and that shouldn’t matter anyways, but people need to realize it can happen to you. It’s happening to everybody.”
That’s why Witt and Johnson decided to put their story on a billboard to save someone else’s son.
“I will never be ashamed of him,” Johnson said. “As long as he saves one persons life that’s all that matters.”
A fentanyl awareness group called VA Moms will hold a rally at the billboard on June 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.