Connellsville Woman Turns Grief Into Action After Losing Sister To Heroin Overdose

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CONNELLSVILLE (KDKA) -- By a government estimate, nearly 200,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses.

Originating as pain killers prescribed legally by doctors, the number of overdose deaths have quadrupled since 1999.

Mary Sampey's older sister, Angela Phillips, died of a heroin overdose.

"She was clean about three months," Sampey said. "She was in a halfway house doing well, then she relapsed."

Sampey, from Connellsville, told KDKA TV's Ralph Iannotti that she is still heartbroken about the overdose death of her sister.

Phillips suffered from thyroid cancer and had auto immune problems.

Sampey says her sister's drug addiction, like so many others, began with pain killers prescribed by a doctor.

"She shared with me that she could no longer get prescription drugs as often as she needed them," Sampey said. "She made the mistake of trying heroin one time, and she became completely addicted to it."

Sampey has turned her grief over her sister's death into action by bringing her anti-drug message to places like schools and grief support groups whose members have lost loved ones. Sampey is the director of Evangelization for the Catholic DeVivo Center in Connellsville.

Reacting to an explosive report on CBS's "60 Minutes" program Sunday night, she says to hear now that pharmaceutical companies and our government itself have worked to make it easier for drug companies to flood pharmacies with pain killer-type drug medications is not at all shocking to her.

"I can honestly say, I wasn't surprised," Sampey said. "I was confused as to why so many people were surprised that this was an issue. Maybe because this was an issue that was slapped so much in my face, I had to become informed. I know these drugs are pushed so heavily, and there's absolutely no stopping it."