ODESSA, Texas — One Odessa family is dealing with the loss of their 17-year-old son, who died from fentanyl. Sadly, a story we hear far too often.
"You may be sitting there thinking 'this would never happen to me,' but I never thought it would happen to me either, we never thought it would happen to us either," said Jackson Warnick's parents, Donna Johnson and Joe Warnick.
Jackson was found unresponsive in his room last month by his dad.
"I could tell as soon as I looked at him, just by looking at him, and so I ran over and he had a white, like bloody foam around his mouth and nose, and I immediately wiped that off, and when I touched him he was cold," said Warnick.
Warnick said Jackson died from using a pill that was a mixture of drugs.
"M-30 pills, normally what that is, is a mixture of oxycodone, cocaine and fentanyl," said Warnick.
Now Jackson's parents are grieving the loss of their guitar playing, smart, talented, quiet comedian.
"I don't think I am ever going to get over this," said Warnick. "I think you learn to live with it. I'm learning to cope with it, but what helps me cope with it is the drive I have to change something, because I don't want other parents to go through what I had to go through. It was totally wrong to be robbed of my 17-year-old. That was my baby, and have to pay to put him in the ground."
Both his parents are working to make sure there is justice for Jackson, by advocating for fentanyl to get off the streets, out of schools and out of the hands of children.
"On the day of his funeral, everybody had gone outside, and I stayed back and I held my baby's hand, and I told him 'I hear you, and mom and dad aren't going anywhere,'" said Johnson.