After loss of daughter, Va. mother hopes her pain helps prevent prescription drug overdose deaths

The mother of a Centreville High School teenager who died of a prescription drug overdose is sharing her pain in hopes of preventing tragedies like this for other families.

Alexia Springer, 17, died in March after mixing prescription drugs with alcohol at a birthday party.

"There is not a second that goes by that I don't think of her," said Alexia's mother, Rona Powell. "Every day, every minute - 'Why did you make that choice, Alexia?'"

Powell thought she had done everything right. Her daughter was a varsity soccer player, a great student and homecoming princess. Powell said she was close to Alexia and had spoken to her about the dangers of drugs.

"I personally believed we were on that same page," Powell said. "I don't know what happened that night."

She said parents were home at the party, but the teenagers still ended up drinking and using drugs. Alexia left the party with a friend who was staying over at her house and went to bed. The friend later found Alexia was unconscious and not breathing.

An autopsy showed morphine, oxycodone, an anxiety drug, and alcohol in her system. David Evers, an 18-year-old from Clifton, Va., was arrested last month, linked to providing the drugs.

Powell said she briefly spoke to her daughter's friend after she was questioned by police.

"I said, 'Was this the first time?' And she said, 'Yes. This isn't something that Alexia has done before,'" Powell recalled.

She said more than anything, she wants other parents to get rid of the mindset that this could never happen to their child.

"I would never in a million years think that I would be sitting here telling you about my daughter's death because of an accidental drug overdose," Powell said. "For this to happen to Alexia, this could happen to anyone."

Powell spoke to FOX 5 ahead of a heroin and prescription drug awareness meeting at Centreville High School on Tuesday. It starts at 7 p.m. in the school's auditorium and is the second such meeting in Fairfax County since Alexia's death.

"I think it's great," said Powell. "I think it's very much needed. I think it's necessary for parents and teens to come together and realize what these drugs are doing."

Powell said spreading awareness about the dangers of prescription drugs is now lifetime commitment. She hopes her devastating loss might help save someone else.

"That is why I'm here and that is my goal," she said. "If it is one person. I hope it is many, many more. I just hope people realize this can happen. And these drugs are so toxic."