No One Could Save Briana. Not From Heroin.

Briana Hoppel owned Abercrombie clothes and American Girl dolls. She had a room to herself equipped like a hair salon.

The New Jersey teen was full of love, energy and defiance. She was a 17-year-old discovering who she was, and what kind of woman she wanted to become.

“I told her I loved her all the time,” said her mother, Lori Altamirano.

She tested her limits and pushed boundaries.

The older she got, the harder she pushed. And pushed.

By the time she was 17, no one could stop her, not the drug treatment programs, the justice system and counselors who tried to step in her way.

Now she’s in a box on her mother’s dresser.

Heroin killed her, one year ago Monday. She was 17 years old. It killed her mother too. At least, it killed the person she was.

Losing a child is a mother’s worst nightmare. With Lori, it still hurts every bit of her being.

But there is more to this story, as there is with every story about a heroin overdose and a life cut too short.

To her mother, it’s a story about a system that failed her, repeatedly, one that never gave her any safety net, never any sense of relief.

It’s about a life of obstacles that Briana couldn’t overcome, even with all the love her mother and her family had for her. Briana had things happen to her that none of her friends ever had.

Briana never really had a chance, right down to the moment she breathed her last breath.

“As a mom, I did all I could do,” Lori said.

A life of pain and obstacles

Indeed, Briana may have been doomed from the beginning.

Her father was diagnosed with a brain tumor that would leave him paralyzed and bed-ridden since she was 3.

Her parents were divorced; she had stepfathers, and a younger brother who was diagnosed with multiple disabilities.

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In first through third grade, Briana would go to the school nurse daily, usually with unexplained stomach aches and anxiety. On better days, Lori said, Briana would tell wildly dramatic tales to her friends, always getting herself lots of attention.

“In fourth grade, I took her to a psychologist who was unable to get Briana to open up about her feelings. Briana didn’t want to go,” Lori said.

Lori enrolled her in gymnastics, cheerleading, tap dance, violin and Girl Scouts. She had “play dates,” homemade meals, birthday parties and close friends.

Her grades were okay, Lori said, although she seemed to need some extra support in school. Lori had her evaluated more than once by the public schools in Metuchen and Clinton, where Briana spent most of her childhood.

Results came back, saying she had “a processing delay.” But to the school districts, it wasn’t significant enough to qualify her for additional services.

Then, by eighth grade, her dramatic tales started to take an alarming twist.

“I was awoken in the middle of the night to go to an overnight sleepover where she appeared to be unconscious and having seizures,” Lori said.

No one would see any signs of visible injury, however. Briana was brought to the hospital by ambulance, anyway, and kept for observation.

Then, Lori said, she was be released the next day without any medical explanations.

Soon after, she had another sleepover, at her home. She slipped on the stairs. Excitedly, she claimed a back injury that rendered her immobile.

She got a helicopter flight to the hospital. “Again, there was no physical explanation to the pain, and she was released the same night,” she said.

One other night, she texted a friend that she took a bottle of Advil.

But after spending an afternoon in the emergency room, the doctor told her he could find no signs of Advil in her system.

“Yet, she swore she wasn’t lying,” Lori said.

She spent one week at St Clare’s Behavioral Hospital in Boonton, where they prescribed “very strong” psychiatric medications immediately upon her intake.

Without prescribing, insurance wouldn’t pay for her stay, Lori said.

“I believe this is where Briana learned she enjoyed the catatonic state the heavy medications put her in,” she said.

Several state agencies, including the Office of Attorney General and the Department of Children and Families, declined to comment for this story.

Moving forward, and backward again

Briana was released from St. Clare’s two weeks later. Lori brought her to a new therapist where she received services.

After several months, however, Lori was told services were no longer needed, that Briana worked through her issues.

“She had no regard for authority and no fear of the uncertain,” Lori said. “She continued to have good grades, a lot of friends, and the love and support of her family.”

“But she was continually getting into trouble.”

Briana was fighting in school, mouthing off to teachers, and then confessed to her principal she brought marijuana to school.

Briana soon found herself in the Hunterdon County juvenile court system, where she was given conditional probation: if she would behave for a year, it would be off her record as if it never happened.

She was given a paper to write and some community service. To Briana, it was a slap on the wrist.

She laughed it off.

She began breaking probation immediately, becoming increasingly defiant at home, associating with the wrong crowd, disrespecting her parents and sneaking out of the house, Lori said.

“I reported her bad behavior to her probation officer weekly, and I was told there wasn’t any place to put out of control kids like Briana,” Lori said

Briana eventually attended Hunterdon Medical Intensive Outpatient Program, and then was discharged, short of program completion. Briana, her mother said, convinced them she was fine and would be able to control her behavior.

When she got home, she sought more attention, and made her mother a target. Briana would make claims to the state Department of Children and Families against Lori, eight all together.

“I tried to give her consequences to her actions such as taking away her cell phone or her freedom,” Lori said. “She felt I was unfounded in trying to correct her behavior and had no respect for me.”

She was placed into Hunterdon County Intensive Outpatient Program for the second time, but was kicked out shortly after. Again, for breaking the rules.

“I asked them what I was supposed to do with her. She was clearly incapable of following the rules, but she needed help,” Lori said. “We were left with no follow-up support.

And the behavior continued. For the thrill of it, Briana shoplifted from the mall with friends after being given money to buy a gift.

She returned to Hunterdon County Juvenile court and was charged with shoplifting. During a drug evaluation, she confessed to using several illegal drugs, and as a result, she was ordered into rehab.

There, Briana vacillated between being complacent and rebellious. She broke the rules, argued with staff and threatened to run away.

“I was constantly being called and told that rehab was a voluntary program and they couldn’t make anyone stay against their will, even if it was court-ordered,” Lori said.

“I told them if I came to get Briana, I would be helping her break her probation,” she added. “They told me if I didn’t come to get her, they would report me to DYFS (Division of Youth and Family Services, now part of the DCF) for child abandonment.”

Finally, one night, they told Lori to come to get her. She had to. Briana had been kicked out of the program for breaking the rules, and she was never welcome back.

Briana then received a state case manager, and extensive services were placed in the home. Briana met with a drug counselor and a separate therapist a few times per week to help her to control her risky behavior.

The hope was that she finally could function at school and at home.

Instead, Lori found marijuana in Briana’s pocketbook.

“I had her charged myself because I was determined for her to learn her lesson while still a minor,” Lori said. “My fear, as I repeatedly told her, was that she would wind up pregnant, drug-addicted, in prison, or dead.”

A spiral downward

Briana was sent to the Morris County Juvenile Detention Center where she was the only female resident, Lori said. Briana seemed unaffected, and even seemed to enjoy the attention.

After spending six weeks in detention, she was returned to the Hunterdon Juvenile Court on Dec. 23, 2013 to discuss options for Briana’s treatment. She was eager to get released from detention before Christmas.

“I was eager to have her home,” Lori said.

Instead, in court, Briana said she wanted to go live with her father, who had been bed-ridden and disabled from a brain tumor for 13 years.

She knew she would have more freedom and less supervision. That’s why she did it, Lori said.

“I pleaded with the judge that that would be a very dangerous placement for her,“ Lori said. “Her father could not physically get out of bed to check on her, and she had no respect for authority.“

Regardless of her pleas, she said, the judge placed her with her father.

“I believe the judge felt that Briana’s behavior couldn’t get any worse, and nothing worse could happen,” Lori said.

“She was dead wrong.”

Four months later, in April 2014, Briana was a passenger in a vehicle with no seatbelt with a drunk teenage driver, Lori said. With false identification and no parental control, Briana was headed to an over-18 club.

At 4 a.m., the driver lost control of the car and crashed into a tree. Briana’s head crashed into the windshield. She was brought by ambulance to Hunterdon Medical Center.

Miraculously, she wasn’t injured. Or so Lori was told.

But the opiate use picked up. So did the heroin.

“There was nothing I could do,” Lori said. ”I constantly told them I wanted her home, that I was afraid for her life, and they said I had to wait for it to go back to court.”

Her court date was supposed to be in September 2014.

On Aug. 12, 2014, Lori spent her last birthday with Briana. She turned 17 that day. They went to a restaurant of her choosing, Lori said.

The week before Labor Day, Briana’s father called to say he couldn’t keep Briana safe anymore. She was using drugs, had all kinds of men in-and-out of the house, and disrespected her curfew.

“I told him she would come back home, and I called her school to find out about re-enrollment, and I called her probation officer,” Lori said. “He told me that I did not have permission for her to return home, that it was against the judge’s order.

“I told him it was my job as a mother to keep my daughter safe,” she continued. “He told me I did not have permission.”

She convinced Briana to continue with school at her dad’s house until they went to court a week later.

Finally, Briana was excited to come home.

Lori spoke to her during the late afternoon, at about 5 p.m., on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014 via Facetime. She said she had no plans that evening

“I loved her so much, and felt she had matured some and things would be different once she came home,” Lori said.

After church on Sunday morning, Aug. 31, 2014, while Lori was cooking eggs, bacon and potatoes, the police knocked at Lori’s door.

Briana was dead.

The night before, she did go out. She allegedly called a friend to pick her up. That night, she got “messed up on drugs,“ Lori said.

At somebody’s house, the friend rested her on a couch to sleep it off, even though she was having trouble talking, walking and breathing. He went upstairs to bed.

No one stayed in the room with her. No one called her parents. No one called 911. No one checked on her all night.

They did nothing. She died on the couch, alone.

Forging ahead

Nearly a year later, Lori keeps trying. She tells her story often to anybody who cares to listen. She doesn’t want another mother to go through what she went through, and end up where she is.

Lori has even organized an event in memory of her daughter, just as the one-year anniversary nears. An “Overdose Awareness Day” will be held Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the terrace of the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, in the town where Briana was supposed to move back to, and live with her mother.

At the event, Lori will invite people to talk, to show a presentation on heroin abuse. But she’ll also get support from the same people who were part of that ”system,” the judicial and child welfare services that could never find the right remedy or program that could save Briana.

Hunterdon County officials say they understand Lori’s plight, and they’re trying to do more. So the Sheriff’s Office will be there to present a prescription take-back box, so residents can clean out their medicine cabinets of expired and unused medications.

The Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office says it’s already been staging seminars, and deploying techniques that are all geared toward someday ending what’s now considered an ”epidemic.”

“People may say, ’Why haven’t you don’t more? Our office has been blowing the horn on this for five years,” said John Kuczynski, chief of detectives for the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office.

Lori’s grateful for the help, but she’s also not naive. Even with all the help that may have been available, it’s still coming a bit too late.

“If I was allowed to [do more to stop her], and it deterred her from whom she associated with, that’s better than her being dead,” Lori said.

Photo: Briana Hoppel