Mother recounts son’s struggles with addiction

Tina Baker, the mother of a fentanyl overdose victim, told her story at an overdose awareness seminar Thursday, Oct. 20, at First Baptist Church, Middleburg.

The Navy veteran and current director of the Community Partnership School at Keystone Heights High School, Baker, said her son Jacob was a soccer player at Middleburg High School and was being recruited by the University of North Florida when he injured his knee. While recovering from his second surgery, Jacob became addicted to Oxycontin, prescribed after the surgeries.

Baker said some obstacles she encountered when seeking treatment for her son were the lack of resources available to families with children addicted to opioids, restrictions on treatments placed by health insurance and the stigma associated with drug addiction.

Baker said that as her son’s addiction progressed, she had to kick him out of the house. She added that his subsequent arrest for check forgery was a positive development.

“He was able to go through detox in jail,” she said. “He was on probation, doing very well: being drug tested regularly, was receiving counseling. He even had a great job, was going back to school, and was doing really well.”

Baker said what happened next blindsided her.

“It was Friday night,” she recalled. “He had just gotten off work, and he looked at me. I was talking to my sister on the phone, and he says, ‘I love you, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ And that was the last I heard from him because he never came home.”

Later that evening, Jacob met a high school friend and the acquaintance’s girlfriend in Orange Park. The trio obtained cocaine which was laced with fentanyl. The bodies of the two men were found two days later. The girlfriend survived.

“I saw the autopsy drug report,” Baker said. “Jacob was clean, and I think it was just a fluke. He just said: ‘Okay, I’m going to try it just this one time, and his luck ran out. Cocaine may not have killed him, but it was the fentanyl. I don’t even know if he knew it was laced. If he did, I don’t think he would’ve taken it.”

Baker said she will never forget Jacob’s radiant smile, his fondness for fishing, and his love for his father, who was killed at sea in a Navy accident when Jacob was five.

“He was friendly and always had a fish story,” she said.

Baker also said that several of her son’s friends have told her they have stopped using drugs after hearing about Jacob’s struggles, and parents of addicted children have told her they have been encouraged by her story.

“I appreciate that,” Baker said. “It gives meaning to Jacob’s death. It wasn’t in vain.”