Drug Addiction Shatters Families, Takes Lives
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UNITY Community unity forum set for Central Middle School Watermelon festival. Monday night. First day at charter school. uuSEE 9A uuSEE 3A uuSEE LIVING 1C The News Reporter Published since 1890 every Monday and Thursday for the County of Columbus and her people. WWW.NRCOLUMBUS.COM Thursday, July 21, 2016 75 CENTS SHELL FISHER WAS ONLY 19 YEARS OLD WHEN HE DIED WILL PROVIDE 50 JOBS Railroad tie recycling company locating here By Les High [email protected] A railroad crosstie recycling company that will even- tually bring 50 new jobs to the county announced it is locating near the former Georgia-Pacific plant. Marjorie Singley-Hall, CEO of Singley and Associates, Inc., an Atlanta-area based company, said operations could commence in as soon as two weeks. The company plans to recycle more than 1 million ties a year. Railroad tie recycling be- came a growing business when the U.S. Environmen- “It was a great fit. The Fisher Family, Becca, Monique, Jeffry Lynn, Jeff and Shell, was shattered when Shell died in 2014 after injecting a tal Protection Agency man- Y’all work together dose of heroin laced with a lethal toxin into his system. His mother, Monique, is sharing his story in hopes of helping dated that used railroad ties, so well and were so others who struggle with addiction. because of their creosote content, must be recycled or welcoming. There’s disposed of in an environmen- more of a business tally friendly manner. Most used ties are piled and left community here. Drug addiction shatters to rot beside railroad tracks You get it.” when they have been replaced. Marjorie The new EPA ruling chang- es that. Singley-Hall “The railroads said, ‘We’ll families, takes lives give them to you if you’ll come and get them,’” Singley- Hall said. “I thought, ‘Now there’s an opportunity.’” Singley-Hall said more than 20 million railroad ties By Nicole Cartrette killers evolved and altered his personality. must be recycled nationally every year. [email protected] “He wanted pain medicine and would come to me in tears. He worked hard to Her company will ship ties from roughly a four-state area to a site near the Georgia-Pacific plant by both rail The glazed look in his eyes still haunts get off of it.” and truck. There, the ties will be sorted and graded. High- Monique Fisher. Rehab and counseling with the entire grade ties can be sold for applications like furniture. She and her husband, Jeffrey Lynn family followed as everyone made every ef- Home improvement or landscape companies will buy Fisher, came home from dinner the night fort to help Shell overcome his addiction. lower-grade ties for uses such as perimeters for gardens of March 13, 2014 to find their son’s lifeless Monique said the idea that children or flowerbeds. body hanging over the side of a bathtub. with drug addictions come from certain For the lowest-grade ties, the company will use an A leather belt used as tourniquet for communities or backgrounds could not industrial magnet to remove nails or other metal, then heroin was wrapped around Shell’s arm. be further from the truth. reduce the ties down to a crushed product using two The needle on the bathroom floor had con- “You wouldn’t think children from large chippers. tained heroin laced with a lethal amount a nice neighborhood, upscale homes in S&A currently has a facility in Scotland County, but of Fentanyl that permanently stopped the Raleigh would have drug problems. You the Columbus County economic development team and 19-year-old’s heart. would not look at these children and the county commissioners were able to lure the company “God help him,” Monique cried. “God think they would be doing these things,” help him.” she said. uuSEE RECYCLING 11A Monique, a nurse, started CPR but When the money or means to get pain- couldn’t bring him back. killers is not within reach, other drugs are Just three months before, Shell had pursued, she said. moved to Roanoke, Va., enrolled in college “They look for cheaper things like and landed a job. heroin,” Monique said. Chadbourn residents “He found out that he was expecting Just before his senior year of high a baby and was ecstatic,” Monique said. school, he left Raleigh drug free and “He was working hard and saving to pay excited about a fresh start in Whiteville. seek help on proposed for the needs of his future son. We were “He wanted to graduate from White- told that he cried when watching the first ville High School, where his dad did,” closing of school ultrasound. Life was going well for him Monique said. “It was a great chance for and he was finally on a great path. It was him to spend time with his grandparents,” By Allen Turner wonderful to have him back in our lives. Shell Fisher she said. [email protected] He had struggled with drug addiction for Later she confessed: “You can’t run He was also the kind of son who walked several years.” from a problem. It has to be dealt with.” A delegation of about 12 Chadbourn residents con- more than a mile to a grocery store to get It did not begin that way. In Whiteville, Shell gave in to the temp- cerned about the proposed closure of Chadbourn Middle his mother a card and basket just to cheer Shell had the picture perfect family. tation of painkillers and his addiction was School received the ear of Columbus County Commis- her up her when he was too young to drive. He grew up in a loving home and was once again escalating. sioners, but nothing else, Monday. But by the time he was in his late teens, the middle child of three children born to “I think he knew he was spiraling William Davis and Chadbourn Town Councilman Ra- Shell was running from a drug addiction. Monique Fipps and Jeffrey Lynn Fisher. down,” Monique said. shad Roberts spoke on behalf of the delegation. It may have crept into his life as early as Both grew up in Columbus County. It is Despite all of the events that transpired Chairman Giles E. “Buddy” Byrd was generous with middle school when he suffered a broken where they lived and started a family un- during his high school years, one amazing his enforcement of the board’s public comments policy, as clavicle playing football and was pre- til their work took them to Atlanta, Ga., event stood out on Christmas Eve 2013. he has been since assuming the chairmanship. He allowed scribed a narcotic painkiller. Raleigh and later Roanoke, Va. “That was the night our lives changed. Roberts to speak for 12 minutes and Davis for 25 minutes, Two meniscus surgeries due to wres- Shell grew up loving the outdoors. He We received a call that Shell’s car was seen even though board policy states that just three minutes tling injuries in high school and an ap- hunted and fished. at a communion service in Whiteville,” are allowed per speaker and the Chadbourn group ar- pendectomy led to more pain medicine. He was full of energy, played football, Monique said. “The Lord had been stir- rived late for the meeting. Commissioners already had “This was only the beginning that in- and was on the wrestling team at school. ring things in his heart for months and we gone past the public comments portion of their agenda. troduced him to the euphoria associated He was a talented skateboarder. had noticed a sincerity and humbleness The Chadbourn group came to the board of commis- with drugs,” Monique said. “Seeing him He was compassionate and had been that is often lost with the changing moods sioners after a public hearing conducted less than a week high became the norm and was often dif- the kind of kid that played with other accompanying drug use (and) abuse. On earlier by the Columbus County Board of Education at ficult to detect because we never saw him children who often felt left out or who had Christmas Eve, in the presence of the Chadbourn Middle School. At that hearing, attended any other way.” special needs. ministers and his grandmother, he fell on by about 150 people, 18 speakers opposed the proposal “I did not realize it in middle school or “He made them feel like they were nor- his knees before the Lord and asked for to close the school and consolidate it into a new preK-8 even in ninth or 10th grade but somewhere mal,” Monique said. “A lot of his friends forgiveness and peace.” facility in Cerro Gordo. Under the school board’s plan, in his junior year at a party he was in a would probably say he was the most loyal Monique finds comfort in her faith. the Evergreen school also would be consolidated into vodka drinking contest. He won, but ended friend ever.” “At that moment, his name was writ- the new Cerro Gordo school, as would the existing Cerro up with alcohol poisoning,” Monique said. He idolized his brother, Jeff, who was ten in the Lamb’s Book of Life which has Gordo school. “That is when we realized there was an just two years older and had been an aerial been my saving grace each day,” she said. Roberts said the proposed merger of Chadbourn Mid- issue.” gunner in the Air Force and served in “I know he is in a better place. He is no dle with a new campus in Cerro Gordo would economi- Monique said Shell’s addiction to pain- Afghanistan.