Long Valley Family Hopes To Honor Son After Accidental Overdose

LONG VALLEY, NJ – Just more than six month after their son died of an accidental overdose, the pain remains evident in the voices of Mark and Maria Broadhurst.

As many times as the Long Valley Couple has told their story at schools, churches and in other community spaces where they open about the day 24-year-old Joshua Broadhurst was found dead in his apartment, the reality that their oldest son was taken from them much too soon still feels fresh as they continue to cope.

Yet, amidst the pain, the Broadhursts are determined to pull something good out of tragedy. On Monday, the couple and their family will donate $10 to the Long Valley Food Pantry and Long Valley Community Assistance Program for every resident that completes the free Narcan training that is provided through the Morris County Sheriff’s Office’s Hope One team between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the Long Valley Pharmacy, located at 62 E. Mill Road.

The training takes about 20 minutes and anyone who completes the program will be provided with a free kit containing one dose of Narcan. For the Broadhursts, the effort is part of their ongoing effort to raise awareness for the disease that claimed their son and that does not discriminate to who it hits.

“We want to help other families understand addiction and remove some of the stigma so that people that are struggling – both people who suffer from the disease and families – and if you remove that sigma, it helps them feeling more comfortable getting the help that is out there and the help that they deserve,” Mark Broadhurst told Patch on Friday.

He added: “There are times when you get so angry and you want to turn your back, but we never did and we don’t want other people to do that, either because the only way to solve the problem is to give someone with the disease hope.”

The Morris County Sheriff’s Office Hope One mobile addiction and mental health outreach program was launched in 2017. The Sheriff’s Office partnered on this program to help curb opioid use and fatal overdoses with Daytop-NJ, the Rockaway-based Center for Addiction Recovery, Education & Success, the Mental Health Association of Essex and Morris, Morris County Department of Human Services, and Family Promise of Morris County.

As part of the program, a Hope One team stops at a location in Morris County where at-risk people, homeless people and others without support are known to congregate. They also stop outside, for five hours at a time, outside heavily-trafficked areas like supermarkets or pharmacies and offer non-judgmental support for mental health and substance use disorders.

As of July 10, the Hope One team has made contact in their community stops with 11,855 people. The team has trained 2,491 people in the use of Narcan to reverse an overdose. They have assisted 173 people into rehab and recovery programs and another 141 individuals with accessing mental health services.

Now, the Broadhursts are partnering with the Hope One program to honor their son, who relapsed and accidentally overdosed after being clean for four years. After Joshua’s death, his parents founded Joshua’s Peace, a not-for-profit that aims to help those struggling with addiction and their families. While the coronavirus pandemic has kept them speaking to groups, the couple has found other ways in recent months to tell their story.

Their message is one of love and compassion as families attempt to deal with the pain, anger and frustration that often looms from addiction. As part of their presentations to community groups, the Broadhursts bring their son’s favorite pair of shoes as a reminder that unless one struggles with addiction, no one can truly understand how devastating the disease can be.

The Broadhursts consider themselves a normal family that is now dealing with the death of a compassionate son who played sports, was popular with his friends, was confirmed in his church and who had seemingly found his way out of addiction before he died suddenly.

“I never thought he would go back (to addictive substances – we never thought that he might go back,” Maria Broadhurst said. “…It’s hard…everyday.”

“What we’re trying to do is to take the pain that we have from the loss of our son to help others. We don’t want people to feel sorry for us, but we want to share the story that they are not alone. It didn’t work out for (Joshua), but it can work out for you.”