We asked Toni Torsch about her son Dan, and she smiled. She talked about his smile and how funny he was. But, as she put it, Dan had a disease of addiction.
She said he got injured on the soccer field. Toni and her husband later found out the addiction started after Dan finished his oxycodone prescription. It ballooned out of control from there.
Toni remembered the timeline of events from that point down to the day. She is not sure how she remembers the dates so well.
There were years Dan was in and out of treatment. Sometimes he was a willing participant, other times he was not. He would relapse each time.
"It was just a neverending cycle," Toni said.
The date that no doubt stands out the most for the Torsch family came towards the end of 2010 on December 3. Toni said the images of that day are burned into her memory.
Dan was back home from a treatment facility in Florida.
"When he walked through those doors it was... I mean I remember saying to my husband later that night 'Life is good.' I mean life was good again," Toni said.
She was going to run an errand with Dan, so she knocked on his bedroom door. There was no answer so she went in to find what she thought was her sleeping son. She quickly realized something wasn't right.
"I kept saying, 'wake up' and I touched him and something like didn't feel right and I yelled for my son. He came in and he just yelled call 911," Toni said.
Paramedics worked on Dan in the house before taking him to the hospital.
"They try to usher you into this little room that says quiet room. I knew I didn't want to go to that room . When I went in, my oldest boy was there and we're just sitting there and the doctor came in and she just said 'I'm sorry. We couldn't do anything. We couldn't save him'," Toni told ABC2.
Dan was 24-years-old.
"When Dan was going through addiction, I thought I was just living through hell. Sleeping with my pocket book, hiding my car keys, hiding my car, hiding his car. I would think, 'this must be what hell is'. But it's not. It's not. Not until you have to say a final goodbye to your children. That's what hell is."
It was a hell she never imagined her family being in. Still, it was just eight months later, that she started the Daniel Carl Torsch Foundation.
She said she wanted to make sure his death counted for something. The goal of the foundation is to provide drug overdose prevention and awareness, help low-income adults access substance abuse treatment, and advocate for naloxone, also known as narcan, the opioid reversal drug.
Naloxone has not always been as accessible as it is today.
Toni hadn't even heard about it until after Dan died. That's when she researched and learned about the drug.
"I don't know what would have happened if I had naloxone at home at that time. Maybe I'm not sitting here. Maybe it would have helped him. I just don't know," Toni said.
She said what she found during her research was that naloxone was only available in Baltimore City and doctors could only write the prescription to the person in addiction, not a third party.
They got a bill passed and that changed.
"I look at our work, because it wasn't just me, there was a solid group of people that spent a lot of time in Annapolis talking to our legislators and convincing them them that this is what needs to be done. So everytime I hear of another person being rescued with naloxone, I know that we had a part of that," she said.
It was an accomplishment that led to Opioid Overdose Response Trainings in Baltimore County.
"Right now we have two more trainings that are planned however we get requests every day from people that are saying 'hey, when is the next one, is there one sooner? I see there is one next month but what about next week?' ... Out of the 35 classes that we've held since June 2014, we have trained 700 people," said Monique Lyle, Public Information Officer with Baltimore County Health and Human Services.
For Toni, that is what it's all about. She knows naloxone is not the answer to addiction, but it will give the person a chance.
That is how she said she knows we are headed in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go.
Toni said she has a very short wish list today. Aside from having her son back, she wants to see immediate access to long term treatment for anyone who wants it.
She would also like to see one central office in the state to handle calls and help people navigate through services no matter where they live.
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