CNN
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Kamal Belwani’s last text message to his 22-year-old son still haunts him three years later.
That was on May 17, 2021. His son was planning to visit a casino in Connecticut to celebrate his college graduation. “Dad, is it okay for me and my boys to go to Mohegan Sun for the night?” Ethan Bharwani texted his father. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
The father’s answer was, “You called.”
Ethan then sent another message saying he was resigning, along with a heart emoji. His father told him, “Okay.”
So began a wild night that ended with Ethan Bharwani’s fatal fentanyl poisoning. In the early morning hours of May 18, a nurse called Kamal Belwani from his son’s cell phone and told him that Ethan was in a coma at the hospital.
Surveillance footage from the casino captured her son’s final moments of consciousness around 2 a.m., falling from his chair and lying on the floor next to the blackjack table. His father said he lay there for 11 minutes until paramedics arrived.
Moments before he fell to the floor, Ethan Bharwani had bought cocaine from a man in the casino’s bathroom. His father said he had no idea he was laced with fentanyl and fell into a coma shortly afterward.
Ethan was hospitalized for nine days and never woke up. He passed away on May 27, 2021 at a Hartford hospital. He is a registered organ donor and his heart, kidneys, liver and pancreas have been donated to three people, his father said.
On the night of his son’s funeral, Kamal Berwani founded a foundation to educate young people about the dangers of fentanyl.
And in August, it launched a free mobile video game, “Johanna’s Vision,” to raise awareness about fentanyl and protect others from overdose.
“Ethan paid the highest price anyone could pay for his mistakes,” says Kamal Belwani. “My goal is to prevent another Ethan.”
The family was shocked when the details of that night came to light. Their first surprise was to learn that Ethan had been buying drugs from an unknown man at the casino. The second revelation was that he tried to buy cocaine. Ethan had smoked marijuana in the past, but there was never any indication that he had used cocaine, Bharwani said.
“When it came to marijuana, he was using drugs recreationally and I didn’t like it, so I tried to talk him out of it,” Bhawani said. “But his argument was that it was legal. And as a parent, you have to respect your child’s boundaries.”
Fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. Fentanyl was responsible for the majority of the approximately 107,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States last year, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, and one kilogram (2.2 pounds) is powerful enough to kill 500,000 people. Dealers can mix fentanyl with other drugs, such as heroin or cocaine, making it more dangerous for users who aren’t expecting it.
Kamal Belwani said that’s what happened to his son. Tests revealed that he had fentanyl and cocaine in his system.
Ironically, Ethan might have survived if he had been using fentanyl regularly, his father said.
“That was part of the reason he didn’t recover. He was what’s called an ‘opioid naive’ person, and his body had no tolerance for fentanyl or any opioid,” he says. .
Their families have been dealing with grief, denial, anger and pain.
Ethan Bhawani lived with his father in Rosalyn, New York and had many talents. He loved playing the saxophone, piano, and guitar. He was on the softball team and competed in billiard tournaments.
After graduating from Baruch College in New York City, he planned to attend law school and majored in business journalism. His degree arrived in the mail a few days after his death.
“He was phenomenal at everything he did,” his father said.
Ethan also had a deep curiosity about the world and his place in it. Days before his fatal encounter at the casino, he published a book called “Man’s Search for Meaning,” a memoir by Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived years in a German concentration camp during World War II. I was ordering. It arrived in the mail while I was in the hospital.
Kamal Belwani treasured Ethan’s cell phone, which gave him a glimpse into his son’s mind. In the voice notes Ethan recorded a year before his death, he pondered the meaning of life.
“It was a long recording in which he wondered why humans were here. What is the purpose of our world?” says the father. “I realized how deep his philosophical thoughts were.”
Ehsan Bhawani’s death left his parents and four siblings in deep grief, a mixture of anger, denial and pain.
“Then you have to sit with that pain and make a decision,” says Kamal Belwani. “What are you going to do about it?”
On June 7, 2021, the day his son was buried, Kamal Berwani established a foundation. He began brainstorming ways to reduce fentanyl poisoning and overdose deaths, including ways to make naxalone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, more available to the public. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first over-the-counter naxalone product.
“This is an insidious problem that can affect anyone, regardless of class, race, or socio-economic status,” he says. “This medicine does not discriminate.”
Belwani believes her son would have survived if he had received naxalone (usually given intranasally or intramuscularly) immediately after the overdose.
He urged lawmakers in several states to add Naxalone, also known as Narcan, to existing AED cabinets that contain defibrillators and are meant to treat cardiac arrest.
Earlier this year, Mr. Bhawani testified before the Maryland Senate in support of a bill that would place Narcan in AED cabinets in the state.
“It has a four-year shelf life and there are no harmful effects when given to people who have not overdosed on fentanyl,” he told lawmakers. “In short, this is a miracle of modern medicine.”
As part of his mission, he hopes “Johanna’s Vision” will educate young people about the devastating effects of fentanyl and what to do if someone you know overdoses.
The game follows Johanna, a teenage girl with psychic powers, as she struggles to understand why her brother Tyler died of fentanyl poisoning, even though he wasn’t a drug abuser. The character of Joanna is modeled after Ethan’s sister, Eva.
While following Joanna’s journey, gamers must complete tasks such as learning how to save an overdose victim with naloxone nasal spray. Bherwani partnered with game developers on this project.
“This game is a much more interactive way to learn about[fentanyl]than watching public service announcements telling people not to use the drug,” Bhawani said. “We want to teach people in a virtual or gaming environment what to look for and what to do so they don’t freeze up in an emergency situation.”
He hopes the game, along with his son’s story, will educate people about the risks, symptoms of overdose, and the importance of having antidotes readily available at home, school, etc.
Nearly two years after Ethan Bharwani’s death, federal agents arrested a man who sold cocaine laced with fentanyl.
Gerard Santiago, 44, of New Haven, Conn., pleaded guilty in January to two counts of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. After a trial in April, a judge concluded that Santiago knowingly distributed the drugs that caused Ethan Berwani’s overdose.
Last month, a judge sentenced Santiago to eight years in prison.
Belwani said that in surveillance video that showed her son passed out on the casino floor, Santiago looked at him briefly before walking away.
According to court documents obtained by CNN, Santiago is prohibited from appearing at the Mohegan Sun and was not scheduled to be there that night.
Belwani is suing the casino for wrongful death in a civil lawsuit, but he says the dispute is complicated by the casino’s location on Mohegan tribal land. If he wins the lawsuit or receives a settlement, he says he plans to use the money to raise awareness about fentanyl-related issues.
“The juxtaposition of tribal and state law, and limited appeal rights, is where it actually harms the general public, who are largely unaware that they are sacrificing these rights by stepping foot in a tribal casino.” says Mr. Bhawani.
It is unclear why Santiago was banned from the casino. The Mohegan Sun declined to answer questions about the case or Mr. Berwani’s lawsuit, citing ongoing litigation.
“We are saddened by the death of this young man,” Mohegan Sun President Jeff Hamilton told CNN. “We are grateful for the extensive efforts by leaders and other organizations to curb this serious problem. I support it,” he said in a statement.
“Since then, we have worked closely with external law enforcement agencies and supported their work in all aspects. More recently, we have supported broader punishment for the individuals who illegally supplied drugs in this case. I also testified in court.
Meanwhile, Kamal Berwani continues to stand up for his beliefs in the memory of his late son. He has some regrets about that fateful night in 2021.
If he had known about the dangers of fentanyl or the nuances of the tribe’s legal system, he says he would have sent Ethan a different text message.
“I never would have said, ‘Here’s your call,'” he says. “I would have said, ‘Absolutely not.’ Don’t go there, go somewhere else.”