Despite her grief, Dr. Laura Berman says she is choosing to speak out in hopes their tragedy can save other children.
Television personality and relationship expert Dr. Laura Berman and her husband are mourning the loss of their 16-year-old son Sammy, who died of an accidental drug overdose. "It's the worst thing that could ever possibly happen,” Berman told Inside Edition.
Berman, who hosts "In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman" on the Oprah Winfrey Network, and her husband, Samuel Chapman, say their son died after taking Xanax or possibly Percocet laced with Fentanyl.
"I was on my way up to his room when I found him, because he had asked me to help him with an internship he wanted to do over the summer, and I was going up to discuss it with him when I found him,” Berman said.
The grieving parents say Sammy was a straight-A student getting ready for college and that his death was a case of experimentation gone bad.
"I think boredom and tons of hormones and a feeling of immortality that all teenagers share and a desire to push the limits and experiment a little bit was what he was trying to do,” Berman said.
Berman believes her son purchased the drugs from someone he met on Snapchat, which allows private messages to be deleted immediately after reading them, possibly making it difficult to find out what really happened.
"We spoke to his best friend who was in the know and actually had a screengrab of the menu that the dealer had put out on Snapchat for the kids,” Sammy’s father said.
The Santa Monica Police Department is investigating. Snapchat says the company is “heartbroken by his passing” and is “committed to working together with law enforcement,” because it has a "zero-tolerance for using Snapchat to buy or sell illegal drugs."
Despite her grief, Berman says she is choosing to speak out in hopes their tragedy can save other children.
"All I can hope is that parents can use our son as a teachable moment,” Berman said. "He had so many dreams and so many plans that won't be fulfilled."
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