Sue Kruczek has been on a mission since her 20-year-old son Nick died from an opioid overdose in 2013.
"Nick has a story," Kruczek said. "And we are fortunate enough to know Nick’s story and his started right in the high school locker room."
Kruczek has raised awareness and pushed for changes in Connecticut to address the opioid epidemic.
Now she’s got President Donald Trump’s attention.
"I kind of knew he was going to be watching," Kruczek said.
On Monday morning, she went on Trump’s favorite cable television program to tell her son’s story.
"Nick would text or call me every single day and say 'I love you,'" Kruczek said.
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But on Oct. 10, 2013, Nick did not text or call his mom.
"I tried frantically to get a hold of him," Kruczek recalls.
Kruczek went with a friend to her son’s New Haven apartment to find that he had overdosed on heroin.
"I made the 911 call and I just remember saying you’ve got to fix my son but I knew," Kruczek said.
Nick died just 11 days before his 21st birthday.
She has since traveled the state to tell the story of how a standout high school hockey player became addicted to opioids.
"It was right before his very first game an upperclassman gave him a little white pill and said here take this it will help you relax and he did," Kruczek said.
For Valentine’s Day, Kruczek and other parents are sending letters and photos of children they’ve lost in the opioid epidemic to Trump.
"Trying to warm the president’s heart with our greatest love," Kruczek explained. "Our missing children."
After appearing on Fox and Friends, Kruczek said she was getting ready for her ride back to Guilford when she got a text from a producer.
"She said, ‘Hey the president just tweeted about you, hop on’ or I don’t remember her exact words now, but I’m like we don’t tweet," Kruczek said.
To his nearly 37 million followers, the president tweeted, “Thank you to Sue Kruczek who lost her wonderful and talented son Nick to the Opioid scourge…We are fighting this terrible epidemic hard - Nick will not have died in vain!”
"Nick we did it, we did it," Kruczek said. "We reached the president with your story."
Back to work at a Madison dentist office, Kruczek told NBC Connecticut she is feeling optimistic about more federal funding being allocated to address the opioid public health crisis.
"It’s been proven to be a disease and we need to treat it like a disease," she said. "It’s the only disease I know of that is not handled appropriately."
Kruczek had a message to other moms who may worry about their own children experimenting with drugs.
"My biggest thing is if you suspect, act on it, and don’t be afraid," she said.
The president’s tweet has been liked and retweeted tens of thousands of times.
In Connecticut, Kruczek shared her son’s story as part of the effort that led lawmakers to pass a 7-day cap on initial painkiller prescriptions.
