Pubdate: Sun, 11 Feb 2001
Source: Courier-Journal, The (KY)
Copyright: 2001 The Courier-Journal
Contact:  http://www.courier-journal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/97
Author: Alan Maimon

OVERDOSES BEWILDER FAMILIES

Pain Relief Leads To Addiction, Turns To Tragedy

EVARTS, Ky. - Harlan County businessman Wayne Anglian loved the excitement 
of listening to the police scanner.

But the static-filled conversation between the local police chief and the 
coroner early on Aug. 9 took his breath away.

"They were talking about Harold," Anglian said, referring to one of his 
sons. "The chief said Harold was in a house in Evarts and he (the coroner) 
needed to head over there right away."

Startled, Anglian drove the few miles to the house and discovered his 
38-year-old son half nude in a chair, his head lifelessly slumped on his 
chest. Harold's twin brother, Jimmy, had alerted police.

At 7 that morning, Harlan County Coroner Phillip Bianchi pronounced Harold 
Anglian dead. Toxicology tests determined that a lethal injection of 
OxyContin killed him.

Last week, federal prosecutors announced a sweeping investigation in 
Eastern Kentucky of illegal trafficking in the highly addictive drug, a 
synthetic morphine that is prescribed to people who suffer chronic and 
severe pain.

More than 200 people have been indicted, and authorities said 59 
Kentuckians have died of OxyContin overdoses in the past 13 months. About a 
dozen of the deaths occurred in Harlan County.

Wayne Anglian, a former junkyard owner and coal miner who also has driven 
trucks for a living, knew his son had prescription painkillers for chronic 
back problems caused by a carpentry accident years ago, when he worked in 
Georgia. But he's certain OxyContin was not one of them.

Anglian, who opened Pappy's Furniture following his son's death, using the 
name Harold always called him, believes personal and physical problems most 
likely led his son to experiment with OxyContin.

His son had gone through a messy divorce a few months before he died, and 
he had lost a younger brother -32-year old Rick -in a car crash less than a 
year before. Harold also was on welfare and had medical problems that 
limited the amount of work he could do -generally helping out his dad.

Harold also was troubled about losing touch with his only child, a teen-age 
son who lives in Lake Mountain in Harlan County. Harold's stepmother, 
Nadine Bennett, said they saw each other occasionally.

At Wayne Anglian's trailer home in this community of about 1,000 people, 
pictures of Harold and his brothers dominate the walls. Harold grew up and 
went to school in the community, but quit in the eighth grade.

His father, who called Harold "a good country boy," considered him a friend 
and confidant and does not believe he would purposely inject so much 
OxyContin. So he launched his own investigation, interviewing a friend of 
his son who was present shortly before he overdosed. The friend 
reconstructed the events of that night.

"He said Harold bought 40 milligrams of OxyContin from a dealer and 
injected half of it into his right arm," Anglian said. The friend also said 
they were about to leave when the dealer "shot Harold up with another 40 
milligrams in his right arm." Anglian believes it was the "freebie" shot 
that killed his son, and he is pressing for criminal charges against the 
dealer who sold him the drug.

Lupe Blas, the Evarts police chief whose radio call inadvertently tipped 
off Anglian to his son's death, declined to open his files or disclose any 
information from the investigation of the death, other than to say the case 
remains open.

Bianchi, in his official finding, characterized the death as accidental. "I 
never knew Harold to take OxyContin before that night," Anglian said. "He 
used to come to me all the time and tell me how he was hurting. We talked 
about his problems."

Anglian said his son was a "victim of circumstances," one of many people in 
the region introduced to OxyContin because of pain in their lives.

Another was Carolyn Sue Saylor, who obtained a doctor's prescription for 
the drug in the spring of 1999 to help ease the pain of an infection that 
stemmed from a major knee operation.

Saylor, who like Anglian grew up in Harlan County, dropped out of James A. 
Cawood High School in the 10th grade. Not long after that, her knee was 
shattered when she was pushed to the ground during horseplay with friends. 
The injury became a lifetime ordeal of pain, her mother and sister said.

Saylor developed a deadly addiction to OxyContin in the last months of her 
life, they said. Barely able to walk and unable to work, she moved in with 
her mother in 1999 and spent much of her time in a small cottage behind the 
house, where she would smoke cigarettes and watch television. On the night 
of Jan. 27, 2000, Saylor watched TV in the cottage with her sister, Mary 
White Brock.

"I sat up with her until 11 o'clock," Brock said. "Carolyn said she didn't 
want to go to bed just yet.