A mum who went viral after overdosing from heroin has gone viral for a second time, for the most incredible reason.
Erika Hurt made headlines in 2016 when a police officer released an image of her overdosing while she was sat in her car in an Indiana car park.
The now-28-year-old said although the picture was a hard pill to swallow, she wouldn’t have it made it to where she is today without it, as per TODAY.
In the photo, which was shared with the intention of raising awareness of the opioid epidemic, Erika lay unconscious slumped behind her wheel while her infant son Parker cried in the backseat.
Emergency services used Narcan, an emergency treatment to reverse the effect of an overdose, to revive Erika, and she was later sentenced to six months in Bartholomew County Jail.
Erika has now gone viral again after sharing a series of pictures to the Addicts Diary Facebook page that show her looking bright-eyed and smiling, while holding a sign stating ‘Narcan saved my life’. Parker, now a toddler, also appears in the photos holding a sign saying ‘And now I get to have my mommy’.
On October 22, the mum-of-one celebrated three years sober, telling TODAY:
I’m able to see how far I’ve come.
She admits she wasn’t much of a mum when she was still using heroin four times a day.
‘I was very mentally absent,’ she said. ‘I didn’t play with him or show him attention. And I took him on drug deals.’
When Parker would visit his mum in prison after her arrest, he didn’t even want to sit on her knee.
Erika explained:
He didn’t know who I was or how to interact with me. That was, ultimately, when I was decided I truly wanted to be sober.
Now, the 28-year-old describes Parker as ‘a straight up mama’s boy’. And although the pair hate spending time apart, Erika now spends three nights a week leading Celebrate Recovery meetings in Columbus, Indiana.
She said:
It isn’t easy, but all the encouragement keeps me going. Parker is counting on me and I can’t give up.
What an incredible life-transformation.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.