A shooting happened at a busy Sunoco gas station on Broad Street at Windrim Avenue in Philadelphia overnight. Police say an argument over money between two customers could have led to the shooting. The victim was left in critical condition after being shot in the head and chest. NBC10's Pamela Osborne has more information about the shooting.

Some of the trains hauling riders in and out of Philadelphia will soon have new power. New electric locomotives are coming to rail lines in early 2018.

Avery Marz, a player on the Saint Joseph's University women's basketball team, suffered a stroke that sidelined her basketball life. NBC10's Matt DeLucia shows us how she made a comeback to the court to play for Hawks.

Parking in Philadelphia? There's an app for that, again.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority relaunched a pilot MeterUP program Monday, about eight months after the PPA impounded an earlier version of the app that allows people to pay for parking without even needing to go to their car.

The plan is to expand the new version of the app, run by Parkmobile, citywide within the next four months.

"After the success of the initial pilot program, we are delighted to offer this very popular and convenient pay-by-phone option to the parking public," PPA executive director Clarena Tolson said. "Our customers will now have the convenience of remotely paying or adding time for parking."

The PPA suspended its original MeterUP system after then operator Pango ran into financial troubles in April. The initial app was launched in November 2015. It was heavily-promoted on PPA property with signs and stickers for the app posted on parking kiosks and parking signs.

Users must download the new Parkmobile version of the app (the old version no longer works) to start paying when parked in clearly marked MeterUP zones, the PPA said. App payment will only be available in the specific zone that must be referenced when making a payment.

"MeterUP uses cutting-edge technology to offer real-time parking solutions on all mobile platforms," Parkmobile CEO Jon Ziglar said. "Now users will have the option to pay and add time to their parking meter remotely from the convenience of their mobile device. Philadelphia is a progressive, fast-paced city with a parking option to match. We look forward to working with the Philadelphia Parking Authority to offer these services."

Parkers can download the new MeterUP app for Apple and Android devices now on the PPA website and app stores.

"Our goal is to improve convenience and the overall parking experience in Philadelphia for all of our customers," Tolson said. "We believe MeterUP is a major step in the direction of improving customer service and convenience."

Drivers can still use credit cards for parking payment at the large green kiosks, as well as cash and coins.

You better have your winter coat, gloves, hat, ear muffs, scarf, hand warmers — you get the point — ready to go as an Arctic blast ushers in potentially dangerous cold.

The NBC10 First Alert Weather Team issued a First Alert for Tuesday night and all day Wednesday as temps could feel like single digits.

"This is going to be the kind of cold that will surprise people as they walk out the door," meteorologist Krystal Klei said. "It's that 'cuts through your shirt' type of cold, because of the winds."

After temps in the 40s Tuesday afternoon with some scattered showers, high temperatures will struggle to get out of the low 30s Wednesday. Add in wind gusts of 40 mph or more and the "feels-like" temps will be between zero and 10.

"It's the coldest air of the season and our bodies are not adjusted to it so that's going to make it feel colder... It's like a January-type of chill earlier in the season," meteorologist Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz said.

Local counties, including Camden and Montgomery, issued "Code Blue" declarations to ensure they get homeless people into shelters and out of the cold.

A slight chance of snow Wednesday night into early Thursday morning but it shouldn’t be significant. Flurries are also possible Friday.

Wednesday's wind gusts could also snap tree branches left vulnerable by the weekend’s snow and could blow around trash cans and the like.

The dangerous cold only lasts through Wednesday but high temps will only get into the 30s into the weekend before a warm-up to the 40s by Sunday.

The cold can be extra tough on your car, but there are things you can do now to get ready for the chilling temperatures heading our way. NBC10's Tim Furlong is in Boothwyn, Delaware County with an expert from AAA Mid-Atlantic who has some tips for staying safe this winter.

A former Miss USA contestant who accused President Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior during the annual Miss USA pageant in 2006 appeared Monday on Megyn Kelly TODAY to recount her experience. Other contestants, including NBC10 traffic reporter Jessica Boyington who was Miss New Jersey in 2006, gave their own account of interactions with Trump.

A husband is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the man who punched his wife in the face in front of their children during a road rage incident at a popular shopping center in Montgomery County.

Lisa O’Neill was driving with her two sons back on Dec. 4 in Upper Providence Township around 4:35 p.m. She told police she was traveling west on Arcola Road at the Providence Town Center when she accidentally cut off another driver as she was trying to enter the left lane.

O’Neill said the driver followed her into the Wegmans Shopping Center onto Town Center Drive near Market Street. Once there, the man pulled up next to her and got out of his vehicle.

“I pulled down the window,” O’Neill said. “My immediate reaction was to say, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’ And he became enraged and screaming.”

O’Neill said the man punched her in the face as her two kids watched and then fled the area.

“I was shocked,” O’Neill said. “Tears just started pouring out of my eyes. I screamed and cried and then I hear my kids screaming and crying.”

On Sunday, O’Neill’s husband announced he’s offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the suspect’s arrest. Her husband says O’Neill suffered a concussion and has gotten migraines due to the attack.

“She can't work and she hasn't been able to attend our boys’ basketball games,” he wrote.

The suspect is described as an older, heavyset white male with white hair who was wearing glasses and a thin blue jacket. He was also driving a newer dark gray or navy 4-door Chrysler 300, possibly with tinted windows. It was last seen turning left at the Movie Tavern.

If you have any information on the suspect’s identity, please call Officer Shilling at 610-933-7899 or email 045shi@uprov-montco.org.

An NBC10 exclusive takes us inside the operating room and gives us a rare look into the ACL surgery that Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz will undergo in the next few days. The doctors also show us what he will be facing post-surgery. NBC10's Erin Coleman has the details.

The cold weather isn't only dangerous for us, but our cars too. NBC10's Tim Furlong is in Wilmington and tells us how we can get our vehicles ready for the drop in temperatures.

NBC10 traffic reporter Jessica Boyington talks about her experience as the Miss New Jersey contestant in the 2006 Miss USA pageant at the center of a controversy involving allegations of inappropriate behavior by President Donald Trump. Boyington disputes the way another contestant that year, Samantha Holvey, tells of her interactions with Trump. Holvey, the Miss North Carolina contestant that year, spoke to the Megyn Kelly TODAY show on Monday.

The biggest Wawa in the world is about to open, but Philadelphia-area residents will have to plan a trip to see it.

Wawa will cut the ribbon on a 9,200-square-foot Washington, DC location at 1111 19th St. NW in the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (between Dupont Circle and Farragut Square) Thursday morning.

Not only will the store be the largest of the more than 750 across six states (and now D.C.), it also has some features that outdo the traditional Wawa.

There is an outdoor patio and custom interior seating, as well as bar seating (like you’ll find at the Center City Philadelphia stores) where you can chomp down on your favorite Shorti (or Classic) hoagie or relax while you sip your morning cup of coffee.

For those jealous of the lucky D.C. residents, take solace in one big feature they won't have: the store will not have a gas station.

Don’t expect the old-school linoleum feel either as the DC store features "the comfort of exposed brick, fresh subway tiles and wood tones," Wawa said in a news release. Just check out the aptly named "Wild Goose Cafe!"

This 1111 Nineteenth St store is also upping its tech game.

“This one-of-a-kind store will also include an all-new interactive digital experience for customers with large interactive screens featuring social media, a digital touch screen display with fun Wawa facts and free Wi-Fi,” Wawa said.

The ever-growing convenience store giant has come a long way since its humble beginnings in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

The opening of the D.C. Wawa will have plenty of Philadelphia-area flair, however, as U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., and Wawa president and CEO Chris Gheysens will help cut the ribbon on the store.

And just in case D.C. can’t get enough of Wawa, a second location in Georgetown is in the works, the Washington Business Journal reports.

Philadelphia's ride-sharing ways in 2017 proved once and for all our obsession with beer gardens.

Uber just released its top 10 ride-requested destinations in the city this year and three beer gardens made the list.

A traditional bar also made the list, which is otherwise dominated by sports and well-treaded cultural attractions. Below, all 10.

10. McGillin's Olde Ale House: If you're in your 20s, this staple of the Center City bar scene is on the weekend circuit for pitchers of beer. It'd be interesting to know the percentage of Uber drivers who are nice enough to drive down the cobblestone side street on which McGillin's resides to drop off and pick up passengers. Eternal questions.

9. Independence Beer Garden: Those not familiar with the massive Old City attraction can get lost just looking for the bathrooms (which are actually trailers). 

8. Frankford Hall: The modern rustic vibe across from Johnny Brenda's has turned the intersection of Frankford and Girard into quite the scene. Get ready for a line late into summer nights.

7. Citizens Bank Park: Proof that some people still go to Phillies games.

6. Reading Terminal Market: The No. 1 food destination for tourists. Have the bologna sandwich at the Hatville Deli. You're welcome.

5. Lincoln Financial Field: What are the rules about taking an Uber to a football tailgate?

4. Morgan's Pier: As you sip a sangria at this self-described beer garden, feel the wind coming off the water and smell the ocean breeze. Wait, that's the Delaware River breeze. At least, you are drinking next to the water.

3. XFINITY Live!: This is not a beer garden.

2. Wells Fargo Center: Interesting that the home of the Sixers and the Flyers beat out the Eagles and the Phillies on this list.

1. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Take that, Barnes Museum.

Young snowy owls have appeared on some beaches in South Jersey for the first time in a few years, with bird watchers and wildlife enthusiasts flocking to see the rare appearance.

Some five or six of the birds have been seen so far, and there may be more on the way before the winter is over, according to Virginia Rettig, manager of the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.

The owls are likely young birds who have flown all the way from the Arctic tundra, seeking unoccupied areas to roost for several weeks. Rettig said they usually make their this far south following particularly bountiful summers in the Arctic.

"These years, when we see a lot of birds way down here, it’s because there's been great food production up where their breeding areas are," she said. "They have a lot of food so their survival rate was a lot higher. So this is generally young birds that we see come down now, and they’re just wandering around looking for places to hang out for the winter."

Rettig warned that no matter how adorable they are, and how eager a would-be photographer is for a picture, no one should ever get close enough that an owl feels at all threatened.

She also noted that most will roost, or rest on the ground, during the day in beach dunes — and people are prohibited from walking on dunes along the Jersey Shore.

"If you see an owl and it starts fidgeting and it starts looking at you and it sees you, you know you are probably already are disturbing the bird," Rettig said. "You never want to get close enough where you make the bird flush or move away."

Tune in for "State of Addiction," a special week-long investigative series beginning on Monday, Dec. 11 on News 4 New York.

Carter Stone was as Jersey as they come.

A Jets fan who spent every summer on the shore wearing out his beloved old beach chair, it was easy to gravitate toward the popular, gregarious guy who just wanted to go with the flow and have a good time.

“Every weekend was phone calls from Carter: ‘Let’s go to the beach, let’s go to the beach,’” said Jordan Gale, Stone’s best friend since high school.   

“He was liked by everyone. He was very popular,” his mother Wendy Galbraith said, describing his upbringing in Red Bank. “Lots of friends – very social, very athletic. Always on every sporting team.”

A college stint in South Carolina couldn’t keep Stone away from home. He returned to the Garden State, working in jobs as far north as Jersey City and as far south as Atlantic City, but frequently meeting his old friends, going to Yankee and MetLife stadiums -- and always, always returning to the beach. For years, Stone would go to Sea Bright to hang with his pal Gale, who worked at the popular Donovan’s bar.

In the last year, Gale didn’t see much of Stone.

“I had a hunch something was going on,” said Gale, recalling how Stone called once looking for money. Stone’s own mother, who was living in Vermont, didn’t realize there was a problem until things just started to nosedive. 

“He lost a job, a big job,” said Galbraith. “He always needed to borrow money, borrow money, borrow money. He couldn’t seem to get the bills paid. He just wasn’t himself.”

“I thought he was just depressed because of not working. I really didn’t know there was a problem until there was a DUI,” she said. “And then still, I didn’t know, because he would tell me, ‘Everything’s fine. Don’t worry, Mom, everything’s fine.’”

It wasn’t until Labor Day that Gale learned that his best friend was in rehab, recovering from an addiction to heroin and painkillers. Stone’s family was feeling optimistic by that point, relieved that their son and brother had finally emerged from the dark, destructive hole that caused him so much misery in the last two years.

“I remember saying to him, my last conversation with him, was ‘You’re doing this. You’re literally putting the pieces of your life back together,’” said his older sister, Lauren Wright. “Everything was coming into place for him. He felt happy.”

Twenty-four hours later, Wright received a phone call: her brother was dead.

THE START OF ADDICTION: PRESCRIPTION OPIOIDS AFTER CAR CRASH

Stone started taking OxyContin after a crash in September 2015, when a woman who was texting while driving rear-ended him, according to Wright. He was experiencing back pain from the accident, but soon became dependent on the pills.

Stone lost his job and depleted his finances from the addiction, and he soon turned to the much cheaper heroin to get high. Wright recalled her brother describing how deeply and instantaneously heroin hooks into the system, once telling her, “You don’t do heroin to get high, you do heroin to never get low. Because once you do it, the sickness that comes from it is so devastating that you can’t handle the withdrawal of it.”

“It’s a brain disease. Your brain changes, possibly forever. And the way your brain processes pleasure is totally changed,” said Galbraith, equating addiction to a hijacking of the brain. “And until you’re clean for at least a year, your brain won’t rest. It’s focused totally on the drug.”

Wright still doesn’t know when Stone transitioned from painkillers to heroin: “I think for many families, they don’t know when that transition happens, and that’s when things really start to get scary.”   

Wright recalled seeing her brother high only once: “He wanted to come by and say hello and I remember feeling scared that if I didn’t let him come, that I would never see him again. I remember when I saw him it was really upsetting because it was not who my brother was.

“I could tell he was struggling and not himself, and it scared me,” she said. “It really, really scared me. I remember when he walked out that door, I was terrified that it was going to be the last time I ever saw him.”

Galbraith felt overwhelmed, so desperate to help her child but unsure as to how. “As a mother, you just want to want to help your kid and you want to fix it, but I didn’t know what I was dealing with. Because I wasn’t educated in this problem,” said Galbraith.

Stone lost several jobs, and got into trouble with the place he was living, according to his mother. Wright’s family got a phone call that there were people looking for Stone, and that he owed them money. Things were falling apart.

The family, terrified, begged Stone to get help. He agreed, entering a three-week inpatient program in Vermont, where his mother was living. Looking back now, Wright said, it wasn’t enough time.

“I think he came out of that and thought, ‘I got this,’” said Wright. “And what he later shared with us is that he relapsed within 24 hours.”

Stone was gripped by addiction for at least another six months. He lost more jobs, and by spring of 2016, his family wouldn’t hear from him or couldn’t find him for days at a time. They again encouraged him to get help – and finally, he did come around to it. He told them it was exhausting living with addiction.

“To be a heroin addict, someone once said it’s like a woodpecker pecking at the window all day long, and it’s draining,” said Wright. “This wasn’t who my brother was. This wasn’t the life he had ever lived. He knew he deserved more out of life. He wanted to live life.”

This time, when Stone entered a treatment facility outside of Atlantic City, he stayed for three months. Wright believes it saved her brother’s life at the time.

“It was really what he needed, long-term treatment. Those months gave my brother back,” she said. “He was vivacious and living his most authentic self -- alive and happy and so proud that he had overcome this darkness that was in his life.”

Stone was “100 percent clean” and genuinely happy after getting out of treatment, according to Wright. He rented an apartment near the facility, where he lived with a couple of other young men in the same treatment program – “good, good guys” who were in it together, looking out for each other, said Wright. Stone got a job in the car industry and was working the 12-step program and stayed in close contact with an “incredible” sponsor.

“He felt like he was on top of the world. With every fiber of his being, never wanted to touch that drug again,” said Wright. “I remember saying to myself, ‘He’s not going to be part of this epidemic. We’re going to beat this.’”

“I really thought we were doing everything we could within our control to help him,” said Wright. “I’ve now learned that I think he was struggling a lot more than he verbalized. I think they’re in their own state of hell a lot more than they verbalize. And they’re constantly fighting and constantly trying to get out. And when they’re good, they’re good, but it’s always in the back of their head.”

“We never believed he would use again,” said Galbraith. “It took one time, and he died.”

THE PHONE CALL: ‘YOU GO INTO SHOCK. IT IS PURE HORROR.’

The day that Stone died, he spoke with his sponsor in the morning and then his mother in the evening. He watched a game on TV with his roommate and then went up to his bedroom.

His roommate was the one who found him.

“To get a call 24 hours later that your brother had died was like – I literally thought someone did this to him,” said Wright. “I literally thought somebody put a needle in his arm and shot him with heroin, a lethal dose of heroin and killed him. Because that’s how jarring the flip side of this was, because it wasn’t what I was experiencing 24, 48 hours ago.”

Stone had become one of the 91 or so Americans who, according to the CDC, die every day of opioid-related causes. 

 “I remember feeling angry. I felt like my brother never really had the opportunity to fight. He never had the opportunity to wake up in a hospital and say, ‘Wow, this is no joke, this disease,’” Wright said. “My brother was on top, he wasn’t on bottom at this point of his life.”

Galbraith wondered: “Why did that that have to happen? What could I have done? What did I miss? What was he feeling at that last minute that was so sad that he couldn’t tell me? Or was his brain totally hijacked that he thought he was OK?”

“That’s what I struggle with. We thought he was OK. I talked to him that afternoon: ‘Everything’s fine, Mom. It’s gonna be a great week at work,’” she said. “Why did he do it that night?”

Stone’s family wanted to be very honest that he’d died from heroin, and Wright wrote an obituary describing his struggle with addiction. And she wanted to make very clear that the opioid epidemic does not discriminate.

“How my brother died does not define who he is, or who he was for 32 years of life. And I wanted other families to know that they’re not alone, and I wanted them to keep fighting the fight,” she said.

She acknowledged how difficult the battle can be: “I really feel like I am up against Goliath. Between the pharmaceutical companies and the doctors and the laws, it’s like, where do you start? It’s really overwhelming and you see kids dropping like flies. And you don’t know what to do or how to help.”

Galbraith has gotten involved with local advocacy groups in Vermont, campaigning for change in the way addicts get treatment, especially at a state grassroots level. She envisions long-term recovery centers and campuses, where people can stay and get extended treatment.

“We need treatment centers that take people for detox and then put them into rehab and then get them into 12-step and then put them into a sober living situation, always supporting them and guiding them to get back into society,” she said. “They’re still so vulnerable at that point. To have to infiltrate back into society where there’s so many pressures and they have to face all the mess they made; they’re having to look at rebuilding relationships and look at all the bills that are sitting there still. There’s so much that needs to be addressed.”

She wants parents to be aware that the epidemic could hit their own families, and encourages more dialogue around it so that people who are suffering can go to their loved ones and admit having a problem without fear of rejection.

“Parents need to be aware that this can happen them. Don’t be surprised, but also be prepared – and be prepared to act quickly if this happens to your family,” she said. “It’s that widespread. It can happen to anybody.”

 “Sometimes they say you need to wait until they hit rock bottom. But rock bottom is dead,” she said.

HONORING CARTER

Wright recalls feeling, on the day of her brother’s funeral, how amazing it was that “your heart can be breaking yet so filled with love at the same time.”

“The things that were said about my brother were beautiful. There were hundreds of people sitting in the church, and I just remember leaving there and being like, ‘He really touched so many people’s lives,’” said Wright. “He’s not just my loss, he’s truly everyone’s loss.”

It’s hard for Galbraith to come to terms, still, with the finality of her son’s death. She knows she will struggle with her loss for the rest of her life; already, she anticipates being "a mess" on his birthday, December 16.

“I don’t want other families to go through this,” she said. “I have so many friends who also have children suffering, and it breaks my heart. I understand how they suffer, because while your kid’s suffering, you are already grieving their loss and the loss of who you knew them as. You’re in constant fear that you’re going to get a phone call either from the jail or from the morgue. And you don’t sleep and you wonder and you worry and you lose weight and you’re sick and you can’t function.”

“And when they die, it’s like someone just shut the light off. As horrible as it is, it’s different. It’s a different kind of finality,” said Galbraith.

Gale still chokes up when thinking about his best friend.

“Carter was the guy that was always there,” he said. “It’s impossible to replace him.”

In tribute to Stone, Gale had a 400-pound rock engraved with his name and placed it on the beach in front of Donovan’s, their old hangout spot.

“It’s one of the places he enjoyed being the most,” said Gale. “And it allows all of us to sit back and have another drink with him.” 

There are many places to turn if you or a loved one has an addiction. Here's the breakdown of trusted resources for tri-state area residents. 

Radnor Police are investigating an email scam in which a person claiming to be a hit man threatened to kill a woman if she didn't pay him in Bitcoin.

On Sunday a woman reported to police that she received a suspicious email from a man demanding a specific amount of Bitcoin in exchange for the person calling off a “hit for hire.” Police say the email also threatened the woman’s family members and stated that the person had received an order to “kill the victim.”

Radnor Police and the FBI determined the email was a scam. Similar emails have been generated from overseas domains and were sent out by the thousands in the hopes that someone would fall for it, according to investigators. Police say Sunday’s email was the first case they’ve seen in Radnor.

“This is the first time we’ve seen something this graphic and this threatening in nature,” said Radnor Twp. Police Superintendent Bill Colarulo. “Not only are they threatening to kill you, which is a death threat, but it’s also an extortion.”

While the threat is fake, Colarulo acknowledged it's disturbing nature.

"But it doesn't negate the fact that it's very disturbing and chilling to receive this type of an email when it threatens not only you but your family," Colarulo said.

If you’ve received a similar email, don’t respond and don’t make a payment. Instead, call police or 911 immediately. 

PECO shut off the power for 60 customers on Tasker Street between 28th and 29th streets in South Philadelphia Tuesday night after wires attached to a transformer began sparking. NBC10 obtained viewer video of the sparking wires.

Tune in for "State of Addiction," a special week-long investigative series beginning on Monday, Dec. 11 on News 4 New York.

Carter Stone was as Jersey as they come.

A Jets fan who spent every summer on the shore wearing out his beloved old beach chair, it was easy to gravitate toward the popular, gregarious guy who just wanted to go with the flow and have a good time.

“Every weekend was phone calls from Carter: ‘Let’s go to the beach, let’s go to the beach,’” said Jordan Gale, Stone’s best friend since high school.   

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“He was liked by everyone. He was very popular,” his mother Wendy Galbraith said, describing his upbringing in Red Bank. “Lots of friends – very social, very athletic. Always on every sporting team.”

[[462825783, C]]

A college stint in South Carolina couldn’t keep Stone away from home. He returned to the Garden State, working in jobs as far north as Jersey City and as far south as Atlantic City, but frequently meeting his old friends, going to Yankee and MetLife stadiums -- and always, always returning to the beach. For years, Stone would go to Sea Bright to hang with his pal Gale, who worked at the popular Donovan’s bar.

In the last year, Gale didn’t see much of Stone.

“I had a hunch something was going on,” said Gale, recalling how Stone called once looking for money. Stone’s own mother, who was living in Vermont, didn’t realize there was a problem until things just started to nosedive. 

“He lost a job, a big job,” said Galbraith. “He always needed to borrow money, borrow money, borrow money. He couldn’t seem to get the bills paid. He just wasn’t himself.”

“I thought he was just depressed because of not working. I really didn’t know there was a problem until there was a DUI,” she said. “And then still, I didn’t know, because he would tell me, ‘Everything’s fine. Don’t worry, Mom, everything’s fine.’”

It wasn’t until Labor Day that Gale learned that his best friend was in rehab, recovering from an addiction to heroin and painkillers. Stone’s family was feeling optimistic by that point, relieved that their son and brother had finally emerged from the dark, destructive hole that caused him so much misery in the last two years.

“I remember saying to him, my last conversation with him, was ‘You’re doing this. You’re literally putting the pieces of your life back together,’” said his older sister, Lauren Wright. “Everything was coming into place for him. He felt happy.”

Twenty-four hours later, Wright received a phone call: her brother was dead.

THE START OF ADDICTION: PRESCRIPTION OPIOIDS AFTER CAR CRASH

Stone started taking OxyContin after a crash in September 2015, when a woman who was texting while driving rear-ended him, according to Wright. He was experiencing back pain from the accident, but soon became dependent on the pills.

Stone lost his job and depleted his finances from the addiction, and he soon turned to the much cheaper heroin to get high. Wright recalled her brother describing how deeply and instantaneously heroin hooks into the system, once telling her, “You don’t do heroin to get high, you do heroin to never get low. Because once you do it, the sickness that comes from it is so devastating that you can’t handle the withdrawal of it.”

“It’s a brain disease. Your brain changes, possibly forever. And the way your brain processes pleasure is totally changed,” said Galbraith, equating addiction to a hijacking of the brain. “And until you’re clean for at least a year, your brain won’t rest. It’s focused totally on the drug.”

Wright still doesn’t know when Stone transitioned from painkillers to heroin: “I think for many families, they don’t know when that transition happens, and that’s when things really start to get scary.”   

Wright recalled seeing her brother high only once: “He wanted to come by and say hello and I remember feeling scared that if I didn’t let him come, that I would never see him again. I remember when I saw him it was really upsetting because it was not who my brother was.

“I could tell he was struggling and not himself, and it scared me,” she said. “It really, really scared me. I remember when he walked out that door, I was terrified that it was going to be the last time I ever saw him.”

[[462845613, C]]

Galbraith felt overwhelmed, so desperate to help her child but unsure as to how. “As a mother, you just want to want to help your kid and you want to fix it, but I didn’t know what I was dealing with. Because I wasn’t educated in this problem,” said Galbraith.

Stone lost several jobs, and got into trouble with the place he was living, according to his mother. Wright’s family got a phone call that there were people looking for Stone, and that he owed them money. Things were falling apart.

The family, terrified, begged Stone to get help. He agreed, entering a three-week inpatient program in Vermont, where his mother was living. Looking back now, Wright said, it wasn’t enough time.

“I think he came out of that and thought, ‘I got this,’” said Wright. “And what he later shared with us is that he relapsed within 24 hours.”

Stone was gripped by addiction for at least another six months. He lost more jobs, and by spring of 2016, his family wouldn’t hear from him or couldn’t find him for days at a time. They again encouraged him to get help – and finally, he did come around to it. He told them it was exhausting living with addiction.

“To be a heroin addict, someone once said it’s like a woodpecker pecking at the window all day long, and it’s draining,” said Wright. “This wasn’t who my brother was. This wasn’t the life he had ever lived. He knew he deserved more out of life. He wanted to live life.”

This time, when Stone entered a treatment facility outside of Atlantic City, he stayed for three months. Wright believes it saved her brother’s life at the time.

“It was really what he needed, long-term treatment. Those months gave my brother back,” she said. “He was vivacious and living his most authentic self -- alive and happy and so proud that he had overcome this darkness that was in his life.”

[[462825633 ,C]]

Stone was “100 percent clean” and genuinely happy after getting out of treatment, according to Wright. He rented an apartment near the facility, where he lived with a couple of other young men in the same treatment program – “good, good guys” who were in it together, looking out for each other, said Wright. Stone got a job in the car industry and was working the 12-step program and stayed in close contact with an “incredible” sponsor.

“He felt like he was on top of the world. With every fiber of his being, never wanted to touch that drug again,” said Wright. “I remember saying to myself, ‘He’s not going to be part of this epidemic. We’re going to beat this.’”

“I really thought we were doing everything we could within our control to help him,” said Wright. “I’ve now learned that I think he was struggling a lot more than he verbalized. I think they’re in their own state of hell a lot more than they verbalize. And they’re constantly fighting and constantly trying to get out. And when they’re good, they’re good, but it’s always in the back of their head.”

“We never believed he would use again,” said Galbraith. “It took one time, and he died.”

THE PHONE CALL: ‘YOU GO INTO SHOCK. IT IS PURE HORROR.’

The day that Stone died, he spoke with his sponsor in the morning and then his mother in the evening. He watched a game on TV with his roommate and then went up to his bedroom.

His roommate was the one who found him.

“To get a call 24 hours later that your brother had died was like – I literally thought someone did this to him,” said Wright. “I literally thought somebody put a needle in his arm and shot him with heroin, a lethal dose of heroin and killed him. Because that’s how jarring the flip side of this was, because it wasn’t what I was experiencing 24, 48 hours ago.”

Stone had become one of the 91 or so Americans who, according to the CDC, die every day of opioid-related causes. 

 “I remember feeling angry. I felt like my brother never really had the opportunity to fight. He never had the opportunity to wake up in a hospital and say, ‘Wow, this is no joke, this disease,’” Wright said. “My brother was on top, he wasn’t on bottom at this point of his life.”

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Galbraith wondered: “Why did that that have to happen? What could I have done? What did I miss? What was he feeling at that last minute that was so sad that he couldn’t tell me? Or was his brain totally hijacked that he thought he was OK?”

“That’s what I struggle with. We thought he was OK. I talked to him that afternoon: ‘Everything’s fine, Mom. It’s gonna be a great week at work,’” she said. “Why did he do it that night?”

Stone’s family wanted to be very honest that he’d died from heroin, and Wright wrote an obituary describing his struggle with addiction. And she wanted to make very clear that the opioid epidemic does not discriminate.

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“How my brother died does not define who he is, or who he was for 32 years of life. And I wanted other families to know that they’re not alone, and I wanted them to keep fighting the fight,” she said.

She acknowledged how difficult the battle can be: “I really feel like I am up against Goliath. Between the pharmaceutical companies and the doctors and the laws, it’s like, where do you start? It’s really overwhelming and you see kids dropping like flies. And you don’t know what to do or how to help.”

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Galbraith has gotten involved with local advocacy groups in Vermont, campaigning for change in the way addicts get treatment, especially at a state grassroots level. She envisions long-term recovery centers and campuses, where people can stay and get extended treatment.

“We need treatment centers that take people for detox and then put them into rehab and then get them into 12-step and then put them into a sober living situation, always supporting them and guiding them to get back into society,” she said. “They’re still so vulnerable at that point. To have to infiltrate back into society where there’s so many pressures and they have to face all the mess they made; they’re having to look at rebuilding relationships and look at all the bills that are sitting there still. There’s so much that needs to be addressed.”

She wants parents to be aware that the epidemic could hit their own families, and encourages more dialogue around it so that people who are suffering can go to their loved ones and admit having a problem without fear of rejection.

“Parents need to be aware that this can happen them. Don’t be surprised, but also be prepared – and be prepared to act quickly if this happens to your family,” she said. “It’s that widespread. It can happen to anybody.”

 “Sometimes they say you need to wait until they hit rock bottom. But rock bottom is dead,” she said.

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HONORING CARTER

Wright recalls feeling, on the day of her brother’s funeral, how amazing it was that “your heart can be breaking yet so filled with love at the same time.”

“The things that were said about my brother were beautiful. There were hundreds of people sitting in the church, and I just remember leaving there and being like, ‘He really touched so many people’s lives,’” said Wright. “He’s not just my loss, he’s truly everyone’s loss.”

It’s hard for Galbraith to come to terms, still, with the finality of her son’s death. She knows she will struggle with her loss for the rest of her life; already, she anticipates being "a mess" on his birthday, December 16.

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“I don’t want other families to go through this,” she said. “I have so many friends who also have children suffering, and it breaks my heart. I understand how they suffer, because while your kid’s suffering, you are already grieving their loss and the loss of who you knew them as. You’re in constant fear that you’re going to get a phone call either from the jail or from the morgue. And you don’t sleep and you wonder and you worry and you lose weight and you’re sick and you can’t function.”

“And when they die, it’s like someone just shut the light off. As horrible as it is, it’s different. It’s a different kind of finality,” said Galbraith.

Gale still chokes up when thinking about his best friend.

“Carter was the guy that was always there,” he said. “It’s impossible to replace him.”

In tribute to Stone, Gale had a 400-pound rock engraved with his name and placed it on the beach in front of Donovan’s, their old hangout spot.

“It’s one of the places he enjoyed being the most,” said Gale. “And it allows all of us to sit back and have another drink with him.” 

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There are many places to turn if you or a loved one has an addiction. Here's the breakdown of trusted resources for tri-state area residents. 

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We are expecting the coldest weather so far this season Wednesday morning. There is a code blue in effect for much of the viewing area. NBC10's Randy Gyllenhaal is talking to chilly commuters.