‘Bullies made my son smoke fentanyl-laced vape… he'll never be the same again’

"He went from a straight-A student to fighting for his life... while kids he called his 'friends' are still out there, running around living the way they want to... it's not right."

Lynda Amos’ son Zach was a straight-A student before bullies at school forced him to smoke a vape that was laced with deadly fentanyl.

“Doctors told me he would never be the same boy that he was,” Lynda told Kennedy News.

The fentanyl in the vape was 50 times more powerful than heroin, and caused Zach to have a catastrophic stroke which permanently damaged the right side of his brain.

It’s left the family-of-seven devastated that their dear Zach, a boy who had a bright future ahead, will now lead a very different life.

“It will never come back. He has to be in a wheelchair because he can’t walk very well. It made him go blind in his right eye. They messed up my son for life,” the devastated mum shared.

It was 6pm on New Year's Day when Lynda’s daughter Katie ran to tell her mum something was wrong with Zach. Lynda wasn’t worried at first; she thought he might be playing a joke on them.

“Zach sometimes tricks his sister and acts like he’s asleep, then when she bends down to tickle him, he jumps up and scares her,” the US mum explained.

But when Katie played the siblings’ normal game, to her horror, Zach continued to lie unconscious in the lounge room reclining chair.

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The vape pen Zach smoked was laced with fentanyl. Photo: Kennedy News

Boy suffers stroke after smoking fentanyl-laced vape

“She thought he was playing. She started tickling him and there was no response,” the mum-of-five said. 

Lynda then approached her son, thinking Zach was taking the joke further than normal.

“When I picked up his arm, it just fell down... that’s when I knew something was wrong.”

Lynda knew she had to move quickly. In 30 minutes, Zach was at the local Tennessee Children’s Hospital... but moments after they arrived, he flatlined.

“The ambulance asked if he’d ingested anything and I said, ‘No, there’s nothing in the house for him to ingest.’ I had no idea what was happening,” she said. “It was terrifying. I was praying to God to let my son live, to bring him back.”

When doctors cut off Zach’s clothes, they found a vape pen concealed in his underwear. Lynda realised her son had been living a double life, and she feared he'd never wake up to tell her what really happened. 

Doctors were able to resuscitate Zach and put him on life support. They told Lynda that if she didn’t sign a release to put him on ECMO (a machine that would oxygenate Zach’s blood externally) they would lose him.

“I said, ‘Do anything you can to bring him back. Don’t let him die’."

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Zach's sister found him unconscious on the recliner in the lounge room. Photo: Kennedy News

His friends threatened to 'beat him up' if he didn’t smoke a vape pen

Zach was in a coma for just over a fortnight. Doctors weren’t sure he’d ever wake up, but the young boy defied the odds and woke, and was able to tell his family what had happened.

He said that eight boys and a girl at school – people who said they were his friends – threatened to “beat him up” if he didn’t smoke a vape pen in front of them.

The bullying had gone on in secret for months. The kids regularly slapped his face and called him names, but the sweet boy that Zach is, he still thought they were his friends.

“I was feeling hatred. I was angry about who could have done this to him,” Lynda admitted.

“He told me that he’s confused about why the kids have done this to him because he said they were his friends. They’d been slapping him in the face and calling him names.”

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"The fentanyl in the vape was 50 times more powerful than heroin." Source: Kennedy News

“It was a miracle that my son came back. He was dead”

Although Zach will never be the same kid, he’s been doing speech, physical and occupational therapies in hospital. He also sees therapists for his mental health.  

“The psychiatrist even said to him, ‘You know they were never your friends to begin with. Your friends would never do anything to try and hurt you and kill you’,” Lynda said.

Lynda has started a GoFundMe page to help the family with medical expenses. She says although she’s hopeful that Zach will continue to improve, she can’t suppress the anger she feels towards the bullies that changed her son’s life forever.

“These kids are out there, running around, living their lives the way they want to. They don’t have anything wrong with them - meanwhile, my son’s fighting for his life. It isn’t right,” she said.

“He’s still upset about it, and still confused. These parents need to be careful and listen to their kids. If they say they’re being bullied, the parents need to do something about it.

“There isn’t any telling how many other people those kids have done that to - and if they hurt another child, they might not come back like my son did,” she said.

“It was a miracle that my son came back. He was dead. My son died.”

Originally published as ‘Bullies made my son smoke fentanyl-laced vape… he'll never be the same again’