Long Island man issues warning about deadly effects of fentanyl in video game

Last updated on September 2, 2024

A Long Island father designed a video game to prevent future needless deaths from fentanyl poisoning after the death of his son.

Newsday reported that Miami-based company TGA published Kamal Bherwani’s first-person awareness video game earlier this August.

The story is loosely based on Bherwani’s 24-year-old daughter, Ava, whose mission is to trace the events that ultimately led to the death of her brother, Ethan.

Through the game titled “Johanna’s Vision,” users learn about the symptoms of fentanyl poisoning and how to treat it with naloxone, better known as Narcan — the nasal spray that quickly reverses an opioid overdose.

Bherwani told Newsday: “There will be many people saved by the rescue, but they don’t even know they are going to be saved.”

DEA Intelligence Report on the “Fentanyl Flow into the United States” (2020).

Today, fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. According to the CDC, there will be 81,083 opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. alone in 2023. That number continues to rise as illicit fentanyl flows unchecked across the U.S. border via China, Mexico, and India.

In 2021, Bherwani’s 22-year-old son bought the laced cocaine from a drug dealer at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. Ethan had little knowledge of fentanyl when he collapsed at a blackjack table after taking drugs from Jerrad Santiago. Fifteen minutes later, when help arrived, no one administered naloxone. Ethan died 10 days later.

Bherwani told Newsday that he is not minimizing his son’s choice to use drugs, but he is pushing for some level of criminal responsibility for these drug dealers, which is normally ignored or not pursued.

…You also can’t deny that the person who gave him something, and he had no idea it was fentanyl, you also can’t deny that there was liability.

Bherwani wants to dedicate his life to advocating for his son and others who have succumbed to deadly opioids. He further told the outlet that perhaps the best way to maximize coverage is to change the language away from connotations of addiction.

If you overdose, you do it to yourself. If you are poisoned, someone else does it to you.

TGA founder Tomas Giovanetti told Newsday that his company strongly supports Bherwani and wants to “harness the potential of games, not just for entertainment, but as a means to educate and inspire change on a broader scale.”

We want to highlight the harsh reality of fentanyl use in an engaging and educational way.

According to Bherwani, the video game had been downloaded 1,000 times in the first six days, with 30 people having already completed the game.

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The video game can be found in the Apple and Google app stores as well as online.

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