Published: 3/5/2021 3:54:32 PM
In August 2016, Huntington, West Virginia made headlines when it suffered 27 heroin overdoses in four hours.
Even in a state with the highest drug overdose death rate in the country, that day stood out as a catastrophe, becoming a kind of call to arms. Of the 27 overdoses, there was only one fatality, but community leaders realized something had to be done.
“The volcano just kind of erupted that day,” Ashley M. Shaw said. “We became known as the epicenter throughout the nation.”
Fast-forward to February 2021, when Shaw addressed two dozen people on a Hampshire HOPE virtual meeting for a decidedly more hopeful reason.