Preventing future heartbreak by sharing Shayla’s story

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – This month marks five years since one family in Sioux Falls lost their daughter to fentanyl poisoning.

“Just a very loving, big smile happy girl,” Shayla’s mother Janette Kucera said.

The month of August is particularly hard for the Kucera family.

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“Knowing I’m never going to see her again and the finalization of it. But it also brings back good memories. But knowing that it’s something that is inevitable. It’s hard,” Janette said.

On August 31, 2019, Shayla Kucera died from fentanyl poisoning.

She was 22-years-old.

“I never would have thought it would have been heroin, opioids, injecting herself,” Janette said.

Years before her death her mother Janette remembers Shayla’s behavior change around the age of 17.

“Kind of didn’t want to be around us, didn’t like our rules. I kind of just put it aside to her being a teenager,” Janette said.

“Because a lot of it was typical teenager behavior,” Shayla’s father Dave Kucera said.

It was when Shayla was 19-years-old Janette and Dave found out she was using drugs after she got into a minor car crash.

“I think she got in trouble with the law. I think she got to a little bit of a fender bender and there were marks on her arms,” Janette said.

Shayla was then put on probation for two years but got off a year early for good behavior.Just seven weeks later, her parents got the call she had overdosed while dog-sitting for a family member.

“We initially thought it was she was having a house party or something along those lines,” Dave said.

“All kinds of police officers, somebody sitting on the front step with a police officer. I walked through the the garage thinking I was going to break up a party and I wasn’t allowed to go in,” Janette said. “And at that point in time, I realized that she was gone.”

“Another part of that was coming back home and telling our boys what happened to their sister,” Dave said. “They were 12 and 13 at that time,” Janette said.

Police say it was the man who gave her the drug laced with fentanyl who called 9-1-1.

“He found her and he did the right thing by calling. I have to say that was very honorable of him,” Janette said.

The dealer who supplied the drugs to him was charged for Shayla’s death.

“I never thought I would get a phone call from our police department stating that they had found the person and we’re going to charge them. So that was kind of a justice for her in a way,” Janette said.

Looking back, her parents think about how a longer probation period may have helped her.

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“We really wish that she would have stayed on probation longer to get more of a chance of being sober and staying away from those people that she was hanging out with,” Dave said.

Each year on August 31st the Kucera family gathers to share memories of their loving daughter and big sister.

“She had a gorgeous smile and just people just gravitated towards her because she had such a fun, bubbly personality. People adored her, She was very loved. I always told her that,'” Janette said.

Now five years since she passed, the Kucera’s are reminding people of their heartbreak in hopes of preventing future ones.

“I hope that they hear Shayla’s story and that they can have conversations with their own kids, let them know that it can be in anything. And just having open dialog with them and being able to talk about it is very important,” Dave said.

“It’s every day that how many people are dying from fentanyl,” Janette said. “And don’t want any more families to go through the heartbreak of what fentanyl can do.”

The day Shayla passed is the same day as International Overdose Awareness Day on August 31st.This year Emily’s Hope will host a candlelight vigil at the Greenway Amphitheater in Sioux Falls.