Parents plead for more help for youth after 13-year-old B.C. boy dies of drug overdose

Chayton Point loved to dance. Just ask his mom.

“He was quite the funny kid,” said Kristine Mason.

“He had a thing of doing the splits for years. I don’t know where he learned it, but he just did it,” she said, explaining he would incorporate the move into his dance routines.

But now the grieving mom is only left with memories of her boy.

Point died late last month of a drug overdose. He was just 13.

His mom recalls a child who was always the gentleman, even at a young age.

“We’d get somewhere in the car and he’d be, ‘Mommy, wait there.’ And he’d jump out of the car and run and open the car door for me,” she recalled.

But Mason said that when her son, who is Indigenous, was about 10 years old, he suffered deep trauma that he initially kept secret.

And the hurt he held inside changed him.

“It was about a year and a half ago, he started self harming himself,” she said.

Mason took him to counsellors and therapists. He went on an anti-depressant.

But last spring, he started using. His drug of choice was molly.

Then his friend, Brianna MacDonald, who was also just 13, died alone in a homeless camp of a suspected drug overdose, despite her parents’ pleas to Fraser Health to put her into involuntary treatment.

The loss of his friend left Point devastated.

His mom, an outreach worker, said she tried desperately to find additional help.

“I was told that I had every resource in place for him and there was nothing else I could do to support my child and his mental health,” Mason said.

With his mental health spiralling, his mom and step-dad took him to Abbotsford Regional Hospital where they say they asked a psychiatrist about the youth psych ward at Surrey Memorial.

“We asked (the doctor) to keep (Chayton), but (the doctor) personally advised us he wouldn’t keep his own child there. If the doctor told you that, what kind of decision would you make?” asked Point’s step-dad, D.J. Endersby.

So, Point’s parents agreed he should go home with a safety plan in place.

Unbeknownst to Mason, her son would later find a wallet at a Mission bus stop that had small bags of drugs inside it.

He would use those drugs.

And they would kill him.

When his mom went to wake her son the next morning, she would find him unresponsive and not breathing.

“I ran over, and I was like ‘Chay,’” said Mason, tears running down her cheeks.

“We narcanned him and paramedics told us to put him on the floor and start doing CPR,” she recalled.

But it was too late.

“After (paramedics) told me my son wasn’t coming back, I went and sat with him and I just held his hand and I just told him how much I loved him and I was sorry for everything,” an emotional Mason recalled.

She doesn’t think her son knew what kind of drugs he took that fateful night. An autopsy found fentanyl and bromazolam in his system.

Now the Mission family is publicly pushing for better treatment options for kids.

“There’s not a lot of resources for kids that age. It’s more for adults,” said Endersby.

Added Mason, “I really think there should be more centres or more drop-in centres for youth who are struggling with mental health. There’s just nothing out there.”

When asked about the tragedy by CTV News, NDP leader David Eby said the province has been trying to make it easier for parents to get their children help.

“We’ve opened a beautiful new treatment centre for youth on the Island… we’ve opened additional youth treatment beds here in Vancouver, Foundry centres across the province so kids get easy access to help. And we know we’ve got more to do,” he admitted, calling Mason’s death “every parent’s nightmare.”

Saying Mason’s death was tragic, the B.C. Conservative leader said he’s committed to improving treatment options.

“We’re planning to build out significant support. Everything from doctor-prescribed treatment to short-term treatment and recovery, to long-term recovery as well as compassionate involuntary care and treatment that’s needed,” John Rustad said.

“This will take some time to build out,” he said, emphasizing that it would be a priority for a Conservative government.

Mason said her son was a caring child, who would want to help others, even in his death.

She believes her son wants his story told to warn other children and teens that even when they are hurting, drugs are not the answer.

“You don’t know what’s in (the drugs). They just sprinkle some fentanyl and you could be done. You’re literally playing with your life,” said Mason.

Because one lost life is one too many.