Mom Wants to Save Other Families from Fentanyl Overdose That Killed Her Son (Exclusive)

Juli Shamash, a mother of three, was at home in Los Angeles putting laundry away one morning in October 2018 when she got the latest in a string of shocking phone calls about her son Tyler.

Their family had been struggling with the 19-year-old’s substance abuse issues for years. He started smoking marijuana around age 14 before moving onto a drink nicknamed lean — an illicit mix of cough syrup and Sprite.

Tyler was eventually kicked out of the private school he’d been attending so his parents, Juli and Charles Shamash, sent him to a wilderness program in Idaho, then to a therapeutic boarding school in Utah. 

When he returned home, the teen maintained his sobriety until he was injured at work and prescribed an opioid pain medicine by a workman’s compensation doctor, his mom says. She believes that reignited his addiction. 

Eventually Tyler turned to heroin — later confessing his problem and going back in treatment. He relapsed about eight months after that, forcing him to switch from one sober facility to another in October 2018.

That’s when his dad called his mom with bad news: He’d fallen and hit his head; an ambulance was coming for him.

It was already a dizzying few hours: The day before, Juli says, she’d gotten a call from Tyler’s sober living facility that they suspected he overdosed and was going to the hospital. 

Her son then later called her himself. He said his toxicology screening at a Kaiser Permanente location in West Los Angeles actually came out clean — no overdose after all, it seemed — and insisted he didn’t take anything other than an Imodium.

Juli, 59, was skeptical but remembered how Tyler’s nerves would sometimes lead to an upset stomach and that he’d recently started a new job. Still, she felt compelled to double check.

“People that have addiction don’t always tell the truth, nor do teenagers,” Juli says. “So I went over to the hospital and I asked the treating doctor three times: ‘Are you sure his tox screen came out clean? I don’t know if he told you, but he has a history of addiction. You know, did you test for everything? Did you test for fentanyl?’ ” 

“The doctor assured me, ‘No, no, we tested him for everything, and our tox screen would show fentanyl, because it’s an opioid,’ ” she says. 

That night, she texted Tyler before bed. She told him goodnight and that she loved him.

Hours later, he was dead.

When Juli’s husband first called about Tyler’s fall on the morning of Oct. 21, 2018, Juli scrambled to get to him, not yet knowing the worst had happened. 

“I ran and picked [Charles] up, got over there thinking that maybe he had a concussion or needed stitches at the worst,” she says. “I run in, I’m like, ‘Is he okay? Is he conscious?’ And then the fireman looks at me and goes, ‘He didn’t make it.’ ”

“It was like in movies, I only can explain it like this: when someone’s speaking a foreign language to you and you don’t understand,” she says. 

First responders had found Tyler with a white powder that his mom later learned was fentanyl. He fatally overdosed.

Juli had only just started to hear about fentanyl, the synthetic, ultra-strength opioid that has, since 2013, helped fuel a drastic rise in the number of overdose deaths, health statistics show.

She says her family was unaware Tyler had relapsed while in the sober facility and blames the toxicology screening for failing to pick up his use of fentanyl.

“Had we known he was using again, we wouldn’t have sent him back to a sober living, we would have sent him to a detox or residential treatment, which is a higher level of care,” she says.

In a statement, a spokesman for Kaiser tells PEOPLE, in part, that “historically, standard urine drug screens used widely across emergency departments did not detect synthetic opioids like fentanyl unless specifically ordered.”

”Our emergency departments followed the testing standards at the time. As awareness of fentanyl’s prevalence and danger grew, so did the urgency to improve detection,” the spokesman says.

However, “today, our practices have evolved, as has much of health care. Since Jan. 1, 2023, Kaiser Permanente’s standard urine drug screening includes fentanyl .… We remain committed to advancing care in response to emerging public health threats, new drugs appearing every year, and evolving clinical standards,” the spokesman said.

“We have learned difficult lessons as a nation, and national protocols have evolved in response,” the spokesman said.

Since Tyler’s death, his mother has channeled her grief into action, advocating for Tyler’s Law, which would require hospitals to include fentanyl in emergency department drug screens. 

After being introduced federally in 2023, Tyler’s Law was reintroduced in Congress this March with bipartisan support. 

The Shamashes have also launched a nonprofit called the Drug Awareness Foundation to encourage schools to keep naloxone on hand to reverse opioid overdoses as well as educate kids about avoiding addiction and teach groups about overdose prevention, among other efforts. 

In 2024, more than 48,000 people died from fentanyl overdoses in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the conversation around addiction in America shifts and redefines public perception, Juli hopes parents will start talking with their children about the risks, even if those conversations are uncomfortable. 

“We always say ‘not my child’ are the three most dangerous words a parent can say — because we didn’t have addiction in my family,” Juli says. “They don’t teach this in ‘mommy and me’ [classes]. I never thought I would be dealing with addiction.”

Juli still remembers the considerate little boy from Tyler’s childhood, the kind of kid who preferred building his own computer over playing sports. 

“He loved to help, and we would have barbecues, [he’d] carry stuff outside and he could fix anything in the house,” Juli says. 

Tyler was smart, curious and thrill-seeking. He loved fireworks and climbing onto the roof.

“We’d be at the park, his sister would be playing tennis and I’d turn around — ‘Where’s Tyler?’ He’s climbed up the tallest fence,” Juli remembers. “Looking back now, I think it’s because he had [attention-deficit disorder] and he probably was missing that dopamine.”

Tyler was close with his sister, Alexandra, 28, and younger brother Griffin, now 23.

He loved animals, including the family’s dog. His mom says he had mild Asperger’s syndrome, a previously diagnosed form of autism, and was obsessed with cleaning products and vacuums, even posing with one in a department store photo as a little boy.

She hopes Tyler’s memory, and his namesake legislation, will help spare other families from the loss she’s had to face. 

“In my mind, when I was growing up, drug addicts were people that you saw on the street corner. But now it’s totally different, and addiction can really attack any family,” she says. “I want his legacy to be saving lives.”