Charlotte Gallant
Fentanyl is a Schedule II controlled substance that is similar to morphine but about 100 times more potent. Under the supervision of a licensed medical professional, this drug has a legitimate medical use.
Illicit fentanyl, primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled into the United States through Mexico, is being distributed across the country and sold on the illegal drug market. Because of its potency and low cost, drug dealers have been mixing fentanyl with other drugs including heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine, increasing the likelihood of a fatal interaction.
This drug is a killer, and is common in drugs or medications bought illegally, from heroin to Adderall. And there is no leeway with it. Fentanyl kills 200 people a day.
Charlotte Gallant was a natural beauty. Blue-eyed with dark hair, eye cheekbones and a dimple. She had the kind of face you see in beauty magazines.
Charlotte grew up on Signal Mountain, attending Thrasher Elementary and SMMHS. She loved music, animals and binge-watching Netflix. Athletic, she played recreational soccer, basketball and softball. She swam for the Green Giants and was on the diving team her sophomore year of high school. She took to the stage at the Signal Mountain Playhouse, performing there for two summers, and took horseback riding lessons, as well.
Two cross country family trips were highpoints for both her and her parents, Leah and Thomas Gallant and her siblings Taylor, Clay and Greyson.
A happy little girl, she had the idyllic childhood, planning to get married one day and live on a farm. But she said she would never let her kids get on social media.
In middle school and high school, Charlotte began to spend hours on her makeup, although she didn’t need any of it. Did she not think she was pretty enough? She began to struggle in school. Her mom said she was bullied. She had her own style, and wore baggy sweatshirts with bands and loved to make videos of herself. The former sunny little girl was rarely happy anymore and began having difficulty with her schoolwork. Her grades were an issue, and graduation was a team effort; but she graduated.
Leah warned her daughter about street drugs, knowing about the fentanyl epidemic. Charlotte scoffed, telling her a fentanyl overdose would never happen to her.
“She thought she was invincible,” Leah said.
Charlotte chose to take a gap year after graduation. After several months, she decided to take classes at Chattanooga State and was planning to enroll. Her parents were hopeful their beautiful girl’s struggle was coming to an end and she was starting a new chapter, one that was happy and hopeful and full of good things.
However, her boyfriend found a drug dealer on the Telegram app who was selling ketamine. Unbeknownst to them, the drug was fentanyl. It was not ketamine laced with fentanyl; it was 100 percent pure fentanyl - but there was no way for anyone to know. The pills look like something your doctor would prescribe.
Charlotte died from the dose she took, and her boyfriend was left physically disabled.
The drug dealers are behind bars, but that is no consolation for the death of this beautiful young woman.
“Please look at her, please remember her. One of my biggest fears is that she will be forgotten,” Leah said.
In her beautiful daughter’s honor and memory, Leah is on a mission to educate the community and beyond about this heinous drug. She has organized a march, Sweet Charlotte’s Firecracker Run, a one-mile run before the traditional Fourth of July parade on Signal Mountain. Packet pick-up is 7:45 to 8:30 and the start time of the race is 9 a.m.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel and is available in paperback and on Kindle. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.
Ferris Robinson