A paramedic's harrowing shift from lifesaver to bereaved mother in the fentanyl crisis

As a seasoned paramedic, Shani Reisnour has seen the painful impact of our nation’s drug crisis up close. But she never expected it to hit her family. Unfortunately, fentanyl doesn’t discriminate.

In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, Shani opens up about her daughter’s struggle with substance use disorder, shares the lessons she’s learned, and what she wants every parent out there to know… before it’s too late.

Transcript

[00:00:00] 911 Call: Okay, tell me exactly what happened. I don't know. I just got woke up by my son. He said his daughter's not breathing. How 

old is she? 

Twenty. 

Are you with her 

now? Yes.

[00:00:20] Angela Kennecke: As a paramedic, 911 calls are nothing unusual for Shani Reisenauer. But this call in particular sends shivers through her soul. 

[00:00:29] 911 Call: Okay, does anyone have Narcan there? 

Anybody got Narcan? No. 

[00:00:34] Angela Kennecke: Shani has seen firsthand the devastating effects of Narcan. of our nation's drug crisis. However, she never thought it would hit her family, especially in this way.

[00:00:47] Shani Reisnour: We used to keep the Narcan in our, in our drug bags, and it had gotten to the point that we were keeping it on the counter of the ambulance because it was being used so frequently. I just, I never thought it would happen to my daughter. I never thought that because she had seen me come home crying, having to put children in body bags.

[00:01:15] Angela Kennecke: Unfortunately, our nation's drug epidemic knows no boundaries.

I'm Angela Kenecke and this is Grieving Out Loud. In today's episode, Shani bravely shares her heart wrenching story, the lessons she's learned, And what she wants every parent to know.

Shannie, I heard you speak at the DEA Family Summit in Minneapolis, and I just thought I have to talk to this mother on my podcast because you have such a unique perspective as a paramedic. You had so much information to share, and I just thought we've got to share that with our audience here on Grieving Out Loud.

[00:02:14] Shani Reisnour: Absolutely. I'm happy to 

[00:02:16] Angela Kennecke: be here. It all starts, though, with your very personal story. I mean, obviously, you were at the DEA Regional Family Summit because you also lost a child. Can you tell me about your child? 

[00:02:28] Shani Reisnour: I lost my daughter, Maya, on July 24, 2022, to fentanyl toxicity. It was very, very, very unexpected.

She had been sober. Maya was the light of our life. She was. A very unique individual.

[00:02:52] Angela Kennecke: At 20 years old, Maya was vibrant, full of life. She loved riding horses, fishing, and any social occasion. She also spent most of her life. watching her mother work in the medical field.

[00:03:09] Shani Reisnour: I went to college when she was very young. She was three years old when I started in EMS. So she was frontline to see a lot of the heartache and tragedy that I did experience on 

[00:03:21] Angela Kennecke: the job. Yeah, tell me about that. Tell me, like, what were your experiences, and especially maybe in the year or two leading up before Maya's death?

Were you seeing overdoses and, you know, I know North Dakota is a rural state, just like the state I'm in, and people think that doesn't happen there, right? 

[00:03:41] Shani Reisnour: They absolutely do. One of my passions is working with Native American tribes. I had been working in the Turtle Mountain Reservation, which is in Belcourt, North Dakota.

We would have overdoses very frequently. Five years ago, we saved a couple cops lives in doing a drug raid, busted in the door. It was aerosolized in the air. We emptied three ambulances in Fargo to save those cops, giving them Narcan. So it was very familiar to me. However, when I'm called to someone's house, it's usually the worst day of their life.

When you go there, you're seeing them at the worst part. So, when I was dealing with Maya in the depths of her addiction and I didn't see it, I think I didn't see it because my vision of someone with a drug problem or with an ultimate dose looked a lot different than what I was currently dealing with with Maya.

We would definitely be able to see drug trends. We knew when there was a hot batch, which we would call that, a hot batch coming through. We used to keep the Narcan in our, in our drug bags and it had gotten to the point that we were keeping it on the counter of the ambulance because it was being used so frequently.

I just, I never thought it would happen to my daughter. I never thought that because she had seen me come home crying, having to put children in body bags. She listened to my stories. She was the one that consoled me. So I was seeing it, but in my vision, drug addiction looked different than what I was seeing with my daughter.

[00:05:38] Angela Kennecke: I have to say that I can relate to what you're talking about because I was a journalist. I done plenty of stories on the opioid crisis. On the day my daughter died, I was working on a story on overdoses and Good Samaritan laws. How ironic is that? I never thought that that would happen to my daughter. I knew she had a problem.

I knew something was going wrong, but I thought I was dealing with marijuana and Xanax. I didn't know what I was dealing with. And she didn't want me to know because she was ashamed. So do you think it was similar in Maya's case? She was ashamed. She didn't want you to know she was 

[00:06:18] Shani Reisnour: hiding. Absolutely. You know, looking back now, I I can put pieces together, right?

I'm sure you can too. She drank in high school. She partied. She was the life of the party. She would smoke pot and she always had a hard time sleeping. So I did know she had dabbled with Xanax for that. She always swore to me that she would never touch the hard stuff. And I know she was very ashamed. She had a lot of journals, video journals and paper journals that I've had to watch.

And I know the struggles with inside of her, she just wanted to help everybody else, but she never wanted to really help herself. She didn't want to focus on herself. She was ashamed, embarrassed, didn't want anybody to know. I will say that I felt the same way when I finally did find out that she had a problem.

When I moved her back home, I was, I was ashamed. I didn't want to tell anybody that we were having this problem within our family. And I wish I would have. I wish I would have shouted it from the mountains. 

[00:07:35] Angela Kennecke: Well, I understand that because I was in the public eye, and I was ashamed of what was happening with my daughter because I knew that she'd been using, as I said, weed, Xanax, and I knew there was a problem.

I didn't know anything beyond that, but it was very shameful for me because here I was, a public figure. I know other members of my family also felt ashamed. Her appearance has started to change. You know, we just didn't know what to do. We tried so many different things and none of them seemed to work, especially when she was younger and kind of heading down this path.

But where do you think it started for Maya? 

[00:08:14] Shani Reisnour: When Maya was 13, She attempted suicide. We were living in the town we live in now. I was the ambulance manager, the emergency manager in our town. One of her friends called my husband and said, Maya took a bottle of Tylenol. I said, no, she didn't. And I was in denial that she even did that back then, but she did.

We were stranded in Jamestown, North Dakota, at the hospital. She couldn't fly out. There was a snowstorm. The doctor looked at my husband and I and said, I don't know if the mucal mistreatment will work. You might need to pick out a casket for your daughter. And we spent five days in the hospital. And now in her journals, I found out the hurt and the rejection she had through her life.

She was a sensitive individual, very sensitive. Her feelings would get hurt easily. I think 

[00:09:17] Angela Kennecke: that's a common thread. My daughter, Emily, was also very sensitive, very sensitive baby. I mean, very sensitive from the very beginning and not just sensitive with her feelings, sensitive to sounds and textures and everything.

And the more parents I've talked to whose children have gotten caught up in either a cycle of addiction or even sometimes experimentation. They were very sensitive 

[00:09:44] Shani Reisnour: souls. Very much she was. And I wish I could go back to that time and how it would have focused more heavily on. mental health for her, but we all say could have, would have, should have, but I think it did start back when she was younger at about 13 age.

[00:10:11] Angela Kennecke: Another pivotal moment in Maya's life happened when she was 17. She underwent jaw surgery and doctors prescribed OxyContin for pain management.

[00:10:25] Shani Reisnour: And that was in 2019. COVID happened. She was very sensitive heart through COVID. She did not like having to isolate. And it kind of went downhill a lot faster since her jaw surgery. Now, in 

[00:10:43] Angela Kennecke: 2019, we knew about the dangers of OxyContin, right? I mean, we should have known. You knew? 

[00:10:49] Shani Reisnour: No, I didn't know that it was as bad as what it was.

It's not a medication that myself as a paramedic managed. I would see people with different medications. But you have to remember I'm in an emergency setting. Here's a lot of those things that I don't pay attention to because they're not emergency based unless it was an overdose. So no, I didn't know. 

[00:11:17] Angela Kennecke: So do you think that's where her opioid addiction began was right there in the hospital?

[00:11:23] Shani Reisnour: I really actually do. 

[00:11:24] Angela Kennecke: With that brain that isn't developed completely yet and we know now that Oxycontin is basically just heroin in pill form. So, what happened after that 

[00:11:34] Shani Reisnour: then? So after her jaw surgery, she had to have her jaw wired shut for like six weeks. She went through this long recovery, you know, she had to soup through a straw for Thanksgiving and Christmas, poor girl.

She went and spent a month or so at her very favorite place in T. West. She come home. and she decided to move back to Minot. And that's really where it started downhill, very quickly.

[00:12:10] Angela Kennecke: Shani noticed a lot of changes in her daughter, including how she acted, the friends she hung out with, and her appearance. Shannon wants all parents to know about these warning signs, so she shared a picture of Maya during the depths of her addiction. Check it out. In this podcast episode on our website, Emily's Hope Charity.

We've posted a link in the show notes while you're there. We would so appreciate it if you leave a positive review and of course, share this episode with your friends and family.

[00:12:46] Shani Reisnour: As you can see in that picture, my face is just, I'm flabbergasted. This was an. October after her friend died from fentanyl overdose. It was the really downhill spiral for her. 

[00:13:00] Angela Kennecke: You know, it strikes me that we have similar stories because Emily started looking much different, friends started changing, and also someone she knew died of an overdose.

Now I had not heard that it was a fentanyl overdose until after. Emily also died of fentanyl poisoning, but that's what kind of spurred me into action to work on this. Intervention we were going to hold that we never got to hold was that a friend of hers had died and I was like, what, who? And I didn't even know this friend.

I'm like, what, who? I mean, did you 

[00:13:33] Shani Reisnour: know this guy? I did not, but they knew right away that it was fentanyl. And she told me that. She called me that night. At that point in my mind, I said, you know, you are what you keep, you know, your friends. Usually if they're doing something, you're probably doing it too.

Cool. After that, she had FaceTimed me and showed me her legs, the bruises, and essentially from drug use, you get malnutrition, become having liver problems. She already had liver impairment from her Tylenol overdose. So she was bruising easily, um, basically falling numerous times. At that point I knew, oh my gosh, I think this is serious.

That same month, I called Maya and I was on the phone with her and I could tell she had the opiate slur and she was behind the wheel. I had to, not only as a mother, but as a paramedic, I had to stop her from thriving. And I had to call her in. She was taken to jail. And when she, we went to get her out, she remembered nothing.

So you knew 

[00:15:01] Angela Kennecke: then that you had a huge issue on your hands. 

[00:15:04] Shani Reisnour: I did. And at that point, I told her, you need to move home. If you do not move home to get better, I can no longer support this and the decisions that you're making that you're hurting yourself. That was the hardest drive home from my not two hours.

Knowing I had to leave her there because she chose drugs over moving home and getting better. So those holidays, those last holidays, the year before she died, I didn't get with her because I had to practice tough love. And if I wouldn't have done that, I don't think she would have ever moved home eventually where I got that time with her.

[00:15:49] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, you know, it's such a hard thing because I was told to practice tough love, too. But every time I did that, I just drove Emily further away from me. And so I found that the tough love didn't work. You know, after a while, I just kept approaching her from a standpoint of love to try to keep her in my life somehow, right?

And kept trying to offer help. I knew something wasn't right. I was really worried. And in this case, she did come home and you did have 

[00:16:17] Shani Reisnour: time with her. She finally called me in May and she said, Mom, I need to come home. And so I. took off of work, and I helped her detox at home. It was heart wrenching and, like, unbelievable to me.

As a paramedic, I deal with overdoses, I drop them off at the ER, and I go on to my next call. So a lot of these things that I was seeing with her as she detoxed, this was uncharted territory for me. It was very, very difficult. But we got her through it. If I can read this part from her journal. This is where she started to journal after she detoxed.

She used journaling. She said, I don't think I could count the times I was so down on myself and cried wondering why God has to make me feel hurt so bad and what purpose I have here. To numb the pain, I did perks, because when I was high, there was no feeling, and that resonated with me so much, listening to her talk to me about the pain that she had, that I really had no idea, but I'm fortunate that I got the time with her, to help her, and to have those times with her where she actually talked to me.

So after she detoxed, how did she do? I compare it to an escalator. So I guess you're riding on an escalator. If you take a couple steps back, you're still moving forward. And that's kind of where Maya was at at that time, the day before she left to go to her dad's, she said, Mom, I'm going to start my new job on Monday, and I'm so excited.

And she loves the children. She loves working with children. She had plans. She had goals. She was doing great.

[00:18:37] Angela Kennecke: But at that time, Shani's community saw a disturbing rise in overdose deaths. Fueled by a concern for her children's well being, she decided to buy all of her kids Narcan. 

[00:18:49] Shani Reisnour: They all had Narcan with them, always. She carried it in her purse all the time. She didn't take it with her when she went to her dad's.

It's still in her drawer in here. I do 100 percent believe that she did not intend on using. There was some sort of trigger. I don't know what happened. 

[00:19:10] Angela Kennecke: While Shani doesn't know what triggered her daughter to use a substance, she does know that Maya bought what she thought was Xanax or Percocet.

Tragically, it turned out to be a deadly dose of fentanyl. She purchased a pill, probably thinking that was safer than something else she could do. I don't really know 

[00:19:29] Shani Reisnour: the motives behind that, but I just know that was her drug 

[00:19:32] Angela Kennecke: of choice. Other shocking information Shani has from that night? A video her daughter had posted on Snapchat while in the midst of an overdose.

[00:19:44] Shani Reisnour: That really hit me very hard, especially as a paramedic. For me, it's just natural to see, you know, you can tell a difference on a call between a cardiac arrest victim and an overdose victim, but not everybody knows that, but it was visible like three hours prior to her actually dying, you know. And what are the 

[00:20:06] Angela Kennecke: signs?

Can you go through what you saw? 

[00:20:10] Shani Reisnour: Well, with a normal recognization of an overdose, you're going to see pinpoint pupils. You'll see blueing around the lips. Cyanosis is what we call it. Blue, gray, pale coloring. You'll see respiratory depression, and you'll start to see the respiratory decline in the patient.

But in this video, I just had, I had showed a picture, I screenshotted from the video, and there were eight people in the house that, that wasn't recognized. That to me was difficult because she was clearly intoxicated. At that point, I had never seen her like that ever at my house, and I know if I would have recognized that I would have taken it to the ER right away.

Right. 

[00:21:02] Angela Kennecke: But nobody recognized it. And then when and how was 

[00:21:06] Shani Reisnour: she found? My youngest daughter, her sister, was actually with her. She was 14 at the time. They were watching TikToks together and she said Maya left the bedroom to go to the bathroom at 1130. Had peace out girl scout into the bathroom and at probably about 2.

20 in the morning She was found by her uncle in the bathroom 1. 30 that night. I couldn't sleep that night and I had woke up. This is just I just don't feel right and That was at 1. 30 and I got to call around 2. 30, but she was gone 

[00:21:51] Angela Kennecke: So you had a premonition or you had your instincts told you motherly and whatever you want to chalk it up to you knew something wasn't right and you also because you're a paramedic and you know how everything works.

You also got the 911 call. 

[00:22:06] Shani Reisnour: I did. I did call and request it as a paramedic and I also worked as through paramedic school. I worked in the morgue and I worked as a 911 dispatcher. We needed that clarification of everything all the way around. I needed to hear it. I needed to see her. I needed all that information.

Okay, tell me exactly what happened. 

[00:22:32] 911 Call: I don't know. I just got woke up by my son. He said his daughter's not breathing. How old is she? 20. Are you with her now? Yes.

[00:22:46] Angela Kennecke: While reflecting on the 911 call, Shani says her main takeaway is that no one in the house had Naloxone, or Narcan, which can reverse an opioid overdose. You know what?

[00:23:01] 911 Call: How are you all doing? Okay, does anyone have Narcan there? Anybody got Narcan? Okay, I'm going to tell you how to give mouth to mouth. 

Oh yeah. I want you to place your 

hand on her forehead and your other hand under her neck 

and tilt 

her head back.

[00:23:21] Shani Reisnour: When I teach Narcan training or I teach CPR, I use that coal for an example for people to understand how important it is. To know and have our team, 

[00:23:37] Angela Kennecke: have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning. I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope memorial website called More Than Just a Number.

They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles. And friends so much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on more than just a number.org.

[00:24:06] Shani Reisnour: It is asked through the dispatcher to, to her grandma. Do you have Narcan in the house? No, they didn't. It wouldn't have mattered in my daughter's passing at that time. I know that she was gone. Mm-Hmm. long before that. But I think it's really important for everybody to understand. We need to have it on us.

It doesn't matter if you're going to the grocery store. You might be able to save somebody's 

[00:24:35] Angela Kennecke: life. Well, in my daughter's case, she was alone in her room with the door locked. She was most likely not there when paramedics arrived. But the guy who sold her the heroin laced with fentanyl, he overdosed in a grocery store bathroom.

And he was saved. Well, you're right. And there was no known Arcan in my daughter's apartment. This is five years ago, five and a half years ago. So what we know now, and the fact that it's over the counter, I still hear that some people are gatekeeping, and I've heard people having trouble even buying it at, like, the drugstore, Walgreens, or, where the person behind the counter questions them about why they're buying it, you know, where they should just sell it.

Needs to be as commonplace as aspirin or defibrillators or whatever, I just think there's so much stigma surrounding drug use and the reason it's used. 

[00:25:32] Shani Reisnour: Absolutely, and I honestly think it needs to be at every single defibrillator station. Yes, I agree. You can get a map of where all the defibrillators are in your town.

Why can't you get a map of where all your Narcan locations are?

[00:25:51] Angela Kennecke: Beyond using the 911 call as a tool for educating others about Naloxone, Shani says that gaining access to the call has also helped her heal.

[00:26:06] Shani Reisnour: I needed to know in that call that CPR was being done right, and there's certain things in there as a paramedic I know that it was being done 100%. And I, I just, I knew she was gone before when I was On my way there, I have a two hour drive to her when she passed away, I got the call and we had two hours to get there.

I wanted them to turn the camera around on FaceTime to let me see her and they wouldn't because I knew at that time if I would have been able to see her, I would have been able to tell them that CPR wasn't needed. And I know now that she has signs of lividity and death, so. She had been gone prior to that, so the 9 1 1 call helped me a lot.

Were you able to see 

[00:27:03] Angela Kennecke: her when you got 

[00:27:04] Shani Reisnour: there? I'm going to tell you this amazing story about it, and give a shout out to my friend Lexi, who is a paramedic. I've known Lexi for many, many years, worked with her. She was on the 911 call, and she didn't put it together until I was on the phone with my ex mother in law.

And when my ex mother in law said, it's Shani's daughter, at that time, Lexi, I got on the phone with the paramedic and I said, Lexi, is she gone? She said, yeah. And when I got to the farm, Lexi and the other EMTs had presented her for me and they waited for me to get there. And she hugged me and I said, you didn't have to do that.

You guys didn't have to wait. You're taking their ambulance of service for that long. And she said, Shani, I know you have done it for me. And that's how close we are, even in the state of EMS providers, law enforcement. We always have each other's backs. So you were 

[00:28:12] Angela Kennecke: able to see your daughter because Lexi waited for you.

I saw my daughter because I got there while the paramedics were still working on her and then they allowed me to be alone with her afterwards. Sometimes, I don't know if that's more traumatic. I don't know what the right, either way, it's all awful, right? To be there with your child when they're gone, when they're dead and gone, is such a Empty, horrible feeling too, but I guess I don't know if it gives you any kind of closure.

I don't know. What is your opinion? Because I go that day in my mind, as I'm sure you do, and I'm a few years out from you, but I still go over that day many, many times. Maybe in 

[00:29:00] Shani Reisnour: one week. Yeah. It's almost like a daily thing. I think that we think about, I mean, it's that trauma that we experience. I was very fortunate.

And that's, I have to shout out to my funeral director, Mark Roth. We had been friends for 15 years. I messaged him at 3. 30, 4 o'clock in the morning and said I, I need you to get my daughter. She passed away and she's in the morgue. You know, without hesitation, he was there. He was so wonderful with me throughout the process.

Numerous times he said, you are so strong. You are, I've not had this with a mother. I went in, I painted her fingernails. He allowed me in by myself. At the funeral home to be able to paint her fingernails as I did as she was a little girl after the funeral I said to him listen mark. I'm riding in the hearse with you.

I brought my daughter in this world I'm going with her to the end, and he had no problem. Like, I was supported so wholly through the whole situation that it was almost comforting for me. Maya deserved everything the way he was, and. It helped me a lot.

[00:30:25] Angela Kennecke: Something Shani has not been impressed with, though. The attempt, or lack thereof, told anyone accountable for Maya's deadly poisoning.

[00:30:37] Shani Reisnour: It is an active, open investigation. I did have GPS on her, so I know exactly where she went. And this was in 

[00:30:47] Angela Kennecke: 2022? 2022, yes. And no one has been arrested? No, not yet. Are you optimistic somebody will be charged in her death? 

[00:30:59] Shani Reisnour: I've been fighting. Very hard for her. Actually, the day before, I might cry. I'm sorry.

The day before we were coming to the DEM meeting, I almost didn't come. I got a call from the task force informing me that the residue from the tinfoil tested is sufficient. So it's probably not going to be able to be prosecuted. And I was ready to give up. And something told me just go to this meeting.

Go meet other people that are struggling like you and because I went to that meeting I spoke with Sean with DEA and it has now been requested for that sample to be sent to the DEA because they have higher testing thresholds with their equipment in the state crime lab. 

[00:32:04] Angela Kennecke: So you may, something may come of it.

[00:32:06] Shani Reisnour: On

[00:32:11] Angela Kennecke: top of her tireless quest for justice for her daughter, Shani is transforming her pain into a powerful purpose. She's dedicated herself to spreading the word about the serious dangers of fentanyl. So how has all of this changed maybe the way you do your job now or what you're doing in your own life, going through this experience, having this horrific loss?

How And then all the knowledge that you have, just as a paramedic, as somebody who's worked in emergency medicine for so long. 

[00:32:47] Shani Reisnour: I'm using it to my advantage. U. S. Attorney Snyder and I will be meeting this next week on Tuesday. And I only met him from the summit. Hoping to work with him for new things in the future in North Dakota.

I've been working on opening an ambulance service on the reservation up in Turtle Mountain. For And hopefully with that, I'm going to have the opportunity to expand education, knowledge, services. I have a vision of what I want to educate and help people in memory of my daughter. I'm such a Narcan advocate.

Obviously, I've been teaching it for so many years. You know, I just want to be able to use This horrible situation that happened to me to save other people, save other parents, help parents identify what's going on with their children. That's what I said 

[00:33:48] Angela Kennecke: to that group of parents that we were with in Minneapolis.

I said, we're all here because we don't want this to happen to anybody else. Nothing is going to bring our children back, but we want this horrible scourge to stop. I don't want to see it happen to anyone else's child. 

[00:34:05] Shani Reisnour: Yeah, and I don't either. And you know, we have three children left that are not 18. My daughter, she's 15 now.

I think my parenting style is a little bit different now. I'm scared. You know, she says to me, just because Maya died doesn't mean I'm going to mom. And she says, you need to let me do things. And you know, I'm still very early in my grief. And from the feeling before that this won't happen to my child, now I know that's real and now 

[00:34:40] Angela Kennecke: I'm scared.

Oh, I get it. I get that. I've got three other children and really I live for them and my husband, right? So we have to go on for the other people in our lives and for ourselves. But in the beginning, I think we really do it for the other people. And you know this can happen to you and not that, Maybe you would lose a child in the same way, but you know that someone can be lost to you.

I worried about my kids every day while they're in college in a different city, right? I mean, you just never, I, sometimes my fears are a little irrational. I worry, you know, is my daughter's car safe is because you know, you don't ever want to experience that kind of loss, but you know that it's possible.

[00:35:21] Shani Reisnour: Yeah. I think that's a very real thing for me is that fear and that trauma. You know, working through that, but my biggest point is love, wanting to educate on Narcan, using my experience as a paramedic moving forward and just education and awareness. I really appreciate 

[00:35:41] Angela Kennecke: everything that you're doing. And I'm so sorry that you've had to be on the other end of that call.

You know, you weren't the one responding to save a life. It was your daughter's life. And it's just so awful and unnecessary. I just hope the more and more people hear these stories, the more we will do to try to put an end to this. 

[00:36:07] Shani Reisnour: Absolutely. We definitely need to, and it needs to be. We are in the age right now of fentanyl, but that will eventually go away too.

We'll find a way to stop that. But really what the problem is, is mental health and addiction. And we need to focus like your program, elementary school, really focusing and helping these kids. Yeah. 

[00:36:30] Angela Kennecke: I agree. I agree. We've got to teach them at a young age how to protect their bodies and their brains and focus on the whole child, their emotions and their pressures and everything.

We have to recognize some of these signs of like with your daughter being so young and attempting suicide. You know, we have to do a better job of those interventions early on. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you for everything that you're doing. And it was a pleasure. Just an honor to meet you and to know Maya's story.

And I think that's how we keep, you know, our kids legacies alive is through their 

[00:37:06] Shani Reisnour: stories. Absolutely. It was wonderful meeting you too. Thank you so much. Thank 

you.

[00:37:18] Angela Kennecke: And thank you for spending time with us. We have another important conversation in store next week. We'll be sitting down with a woman who took bold steps as one of the first people to sue Snapchat. Trying to hold the social media company accountable for being a platform used by drug dealers. 

[00:37:37] Amy Neville: Snapchat has the ability to dial up the protections on their platform.

But if they do that, they lose profitability. And so, money's everything at this point, right? So they choose not to, so they can maintain profitability. Is really what it boils down to. They've got the algorithms to pull these different emojis off of there. They know, based on people's activities, that whether or not they're a drug dealer or selling drugs or how they're connecting with their kids in these spaces.

[00:38:04] Angela Kennecke: Amy's mission is also very personal because she lost her 14 year old son. Yes, he was just 14 years old after he bought what he thought was oxycodone by a Snapchat. Hear her emotional testimony next week on Grieving Out Loud. Until then, thank you for joining us and wishing you faith, hope, and courage.

This podcast is produced by Casey Wundenberg King and Anna Fy.