Lavard Lewis sat on the steps of his home on Etting Street in West Baltimore with his wife in 2021. He saw a man get into a truck and lock the doors, and suspected the man was using drugs. He told his wife he wasn’t going to get involved, and they went inside to continue their day.

He soon saw emergency workers arrive and attend to the man, who had overdosed and died. His name was Devon Wellington.

Two years later, Lewis was working a new job at a local library when a woman named Donna Bruce approached him and started chatting about her work as a recovery and mental health consultant. She mentioned that her son had died of an overdose while sitting in his truck on Etting Street.

He stopped her: “Let me fill the gaps in for you.”

Lewis talked about Wellington’s truck and described his appearance. They both realized Lewis was one of the last people to see Bruce’s son alive.

Since then, the two have bonded. Bruce taught Lewis how to use Narcan, which reverses overdoses.

Most recently, they were together this month when Baltimore unveiled a new street sign on part of Etting Street in his honor. It’s called Devon Wellington’s Way.

The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly double that of any other large city, and higher than nearly all of Appalachia during the prescription pill crisis, the Midwest during the height of rural meth labs or New York during the crack epidemic

There have been nearly 6,000 opioid overdose deaths in Baltimore in the last six years. Wellington was one of them.

At the street renaming June 5, Bruce, with the help of her husband, Dwayne Bruce, pulled on the string that represents a closing chapter for her and for those on Etting Street.

Donna Bruce jumped into the air when the new street sign was revealed to say Devon Wellington’s Way. There was extra significance: Wellington would have turned 35 that day.

A street sign of hope

Wellington’s relatives, friends and the neighborhood’s residents all gathered under the Devon Wellington’s Way sign to hug and catch up. Music played in the street while people danced in the rain. Donna Bruce organized the distribution of free plates of food and Narcan.

For Bruce, the rain wasn’t a damper on the moment. It felt right.

“It’s Devon just pouring all his tears on me, watering me, planting me,” she said. “I feel renewed. I feel refreshed. I feel like, what’s the next assignment?”

Bruce took out praise flags to express her joy. She let the gold flags shimmer in the falling rain as neighbors peered out the window to watch the scene on their street. The rain washed away some of the pain that day.

“By me being there yesterday and seeing that they was at peace, it brought me to the point where I was a little bit more comfortable,” Lewis said about attending the street renaming.

Doing the work

Lewis said Donna Bruce has taught him how to interact with people experiencing overdoses. He said he has saved 10 people with Narcan in recent years. And Lewis and Bruce have been working together to keep people safe at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and North Avenue.

Bruce created an organization, Donna Bruce Unlimited Inc., that provides training to people who suffer from mental health and substance misuse to become certified peer recovery specialists.

As the street renaming celebration was winding down, a man clutching a piece of paper with information for a treatment facility approached Bruce, she said. She noted that along with honoring her son, another goal for the event was helping connect the people of Etting Street with treatment.

Lewis’ relationship with Bruce has helped soothe him, he said, after his 2021 encounter with her son.

“I wrestled with that for a while, you know, after I met her,” he said. “You know, could I have intervened?”