Medics rushed the 2 to a hospital. The buddy survived, however Sienna was pronounced lifeless of what was confirmed to be fentanyl poisoning.

“They didn’t know what that they had,” Sienna’s mom advised the TV station. “They didn’t understand it was fentanyl.”

In a letter despatched to oldsters Wednesday night, Plano Unbiased Faculty District Superintendent Theresa Williams confirmed that an unidentified pupil had just lately died of a fentanyl overdose.

“We just lately skilled the tragic loss of one of our beloved Plano ISD college students to a lethal fentanyl poisoning,” Williams mentioned within the letter, in accordance with WFAA. “I can not categorical the unhappiness and grief that we’re all feeling.”

The Vaughn household advised The Washington Put up that they’ve been “crushed by the sudden loss of our great daughter and sister.”

“She meant every little thing to us and we’ll by no means absolutely recuperate,” the household mentioned in a press release. “Our aim in going public together with her story is to honor her reminiscence by attempting to save lots of the lives of different kids.”

Sienna’s demise is the newest deadly teen fentanyl overdose to rock Texas in latest months, as mother and father, lawmakers and authorities reply through interviews, proposed payments and even billboards that includes the faces of younger individuals who have died.

In North Texas, there have been almost a dozen circumstances of college students within the Carrollton-Farmers Department Unbiased Faculty District overdosing on fentanyl between September and early March, NBC Information reported. The circumstances, which embody three deaths, led to expenses in opposition to three folks for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute a managed substance, in accordance with a federal criticism final month.

Billboards went up this week close to Austin exhibiting Cameron Stewart, a 19-year-old from Cedar Park, Tex., who died after taking a laced Valium in 2021. The billboard, which incorporates a picture of a smiling Stewart, reads, “Fentanyl kills … simply ask my mother!”

Texas Republicans have responded to the fentanyl deaths by calling for extra training in faculties and harsher punishments for these convicted of promoting the opioid. State Rep. Terry Wilson (R) proposed a invoice this month that calls for varsity districts to offer a minimum of 10 hours of instruction associated to “fentanyl prevention and drug poisoning consciousness” for college students in grades six via 12. The invoice is known as “Tucker’s Regulation” for Tucker Roe, a 19-year-old from Leander, Tex., who, like Vaughn, died after he purchased and took what he thought was a Percocet in 2021.

The Texas Senate unanimously handed a invoice Wednesday that might enable prosecutors to cost fentanyl distributors with homicide. The invoice sponsored by state Sen. Joan Huffman (R), which might classify fentanyl overdoses as “poisonings,” has discovered help from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and is predicted to be signed into regulation. The state GOP’s strategy of rising prison penalties has been criticized by specialists, who accuse the lawmakers of not doing sufficient to assist with dependancy.

What’s unfolding in Texas displays the nationwide uptick in fentanyl overdoses amongst younger folks. Relying on an individual’s physique measurement, tolerance and previous utilization, a fentanyl dose of as little as 2 milligrams may be deadly, in accordance with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

A December report from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention discovered that the median month-to-month overdose deaths associated to fentanyl for folks ages 10 to 19 elevated by 182 p.c from July to December 2019 in contrast with the identical interval in 2021. Between July 2019 and December 2021, greater than 2,200 teenagers fatally overdosed in america, in accordance with the report — and fentanyl was concerned in 84 p.c of these deaths.

Sienna’s household mentioned their daughter was concerned in cheerleading and Lady Scouts, and he or she beloved thrift buying, going to live shows and enjoying with the household’s cats.

“She was simply residing her 16-year-old life,” mom Stephanie Vaughn mentioned to KDFW.

On Feb. 19, Sienna was consuming snacks and goofing off together with her buddy on what seemed to be an everyday Sunday, her mother advised native media. However the mom realized one thing was unsuitable when her daughter didn’t reply after she knocked on the door. Vaughn opened the door and understood there was hazard, she mentioned.

“Her buddy was making this bizarre gurgling noise and I noticed Sienna and he or she was simply so pale,” the mom recalled to the station, saying she began performing CPR. “I instantly mentioned, ‘Name 911, name 911.’ ”

The household wrote on their memorial web page that although they discovered her solely about an hour after she had taken the fentanyl, it was too late.

“Taking a prescription tablet that somebody gave her was a mistake, however this could NOT have been a deadly error,” they wrote. “With Fentanyl-laced faux prescription drugs in circulation, individuals are not getting a second probability.”

Within the Wednesday letter to Plano ISD mother and father, Williams urged households to speak to their children in regards to the threats of drug use, particularly fentanyl.

“It’s essential that college students and people of us who take care of them perceive the dangers concerned and the devastating penalties that may come from experimenting with this and different medicine, which are available varied varieties — from drugs to vape options,” Williams wrote.

Since Sienna’s demise, her household has raised greater than $31,000 on GoFundMe to assist elevate consciousness round getting the overdose-reversal drug Narcan into faculties and work with organizations centered on the fentanyl disaster. The Vaughn household harassed to The Put up that Sienna’s story, together with so many of the opposite examples of younger folks dying of fentanyl overdoses, is vital to share — regardless of how painful it’s for them.

“No household ought to undergo this ache and no youngster ought to lose their future as a result of entice that’s faux prescription drugs laced with fentanyl,” the household mentioned. “Please speak to your children and unfold the world about this poison.”