SUFFOLK, Va. (WVEC) -- Three people die everyday in Virginia of an opioid overdose. On November 10, one of those people was 22 year old Victoria Dail of Suffolk.
After the state declared opioid abuse a public health emergency Monday, Dail's father, Michael Dail felt compelled to speak out about the daughter he lost in hopes it can help someone else.
Dail was a high school honor student and athlete before going to Virginia Wesleyan. In high school at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy, she was an All-Conference/All State volleyball award winner. She also played in college.
Her father speaks from her grave site he visits everyday, where the flowers are still fresh.
And so is his pain.
"People think that it's a shameful drug, They don't want to talk about it because you think of skid row, you think of people who live homeless, stuff like that but it's everybody. It's the guy sitting at Starbucks--your cashier sitting at Walmart. It's anybody and it's not shameful. They need to talk about it. As the Surgeon General said it's a disease."
Michael Dail noticed something was wrong with his daughter about two years ago when her grades started falling while she was a student at Virginia Wesleyan. Right after she graduated from high school, had suffered a concussion in a car accident and was prescribed opioid painkillers. That's how her addiction started.
"it went from Percocet to Oxycontin to Roxy whatever that is--and then it got into where she couldn't afford it--at 30 dollars, 40 dollars for a pill rather than 10 dollars for capsule or whatever they do for bag of heroin. It's cheaper and a better high.
Dail helped his daughter seek treatment but long term rehab was too expensive. She seemed to be doing well working and preparing to join the Navy. That is until her father got a dreaded phone call.
"I got a call that morning from her grandfather saying Mike, she's kneeled over on the side of the bed and cold to the touch, you need to get over here immediately."
Dail is hoping police find the person who provided his daughter the drugs. It's hard for him to understand how someone could willingly sell someone such a deadly drug.
He wants justice.