Newsman 'Bewildered' By Granddaughter's OD Starts New Foundation

SAG HARBOR, NY — September will mark four years since the day Drew Scott, longtime News 12 anchor and reporter, lost his beautiful granddaughter Hallie Rae Ulrich, 22, who was found lifeless on an East Hampton road after a fatal heroin overdose.

After her death, Scott devoted his life to helping others battling addiction, serving as co-chair of the Southampton Opioid Addiction Task Force and also creating a task force in Islip. Now, he said, he wants to take the next step.

"I want to carry this work a little further and wider and I want a foundation formed to award scholarships and continue our education and training work on the East End," Scott said. "I just want her life to mean something and help others."

The Hallie Rae Foundation will take flight soon with a 503 (c) (3) tax exempt status, he said.

Scott wants to provide a lifeline to those who find themselves facing the most difficult, dark days of their lives: "I was bewildered when I first learned about Hallie’s addiction, didn’t know what to do or where to turn," he said.

And now, more than ever, there is a need for resources, with overdoses rising due to the coronavirus crisis, he said.

"With social distancing and quarantining, those who are in recovery find more temptation to reuse opioids than ever before," Scott said. "Also there is more depression now due to the coronavirus."

Jeffrey Reynolds, president and chief executive officer of the Family and Children's Association in Mineola, said prevention advocates have been warning for a few months now that anxiety, depression and uncertainty, combined with dramatic shifts in prevention, access to care and in the overall drug supply would fuel the "other" pandemic that "America seems to have forgotten about" during the coronavirus crisis.

"Now those realities are reflected in the official stats and I’d expect the upward trend to continue," he said. "This is disheartening because we were making so much progress and because we Long Islanders are continuing to experience avoidable deaths.”

Also as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, "nonprofit organizations are being threatened with budget cuts given the huge deficit at the state and county levels and absent federal help, it’s clear that many prevention, treatment and recovery will be forced to close. Then we will see the numbers soar in ways we never dreamed possible," Reynolds said.

In Suffolk County, new data indicates that pending fatal opioid overdoses are up to 139 for 2020 so far, compared to 107 in 2019.

The need is dire to help those struggling, Scott said, adding that his new foundation won't change his ongoing work as a committee member in the Southampton Town Addiction & Recovery group.

Despite the tragic circumstances of her death, Ulrich, who lived in Sag Harbor and was a Pierson High School graduate and a gifted artist, left a long legacy; her "radiant" smile and beautiful life will leave a forever mark on the many who loved her, family and friends said at a memorial held in her honor on Long Beach.

"She was truly a beautiful 22-year old who deserved better in life," Scott said.