No funeral service was scheduled, but the message could not have been any stronger after an ‘Opioid Hearse’ pulled into Ridgecrest Cemetery, Friday.

Enlisted to help bring awareness to the problems of opioid addiction, the donated hearse is a collective effort between the Funeral Directors in Tennessee, the National Funeral Home Directors, the Madison County Sheriff’s Office and Bob Arrington of Arrington Funeral Directors.

“This has a Halloween feel, but this is serious business,” said John Mehr, sheriff of Madison County. “We don’t want your business, but we want people to speak up. Funeral home directors actually know when somebody dies of opioid abuse. They were seeing so many across the nation … even locally (including) pillars of the community.”

Mehr said he and Bob Arrington began to discuss not only the danger of opioids after Arrington returned home following a meeting in Idaho.

“The concept of this Opioid Hearse started about 11 months ago when I was at a National Funeral Directors Association Leadership Conference,” Bob Arrington said. “It was brought to the funeral directors attention just how much of a crisis opioid overdoses were.”

Arrington said the Ohio funeral directors said their state ranked No. 1 in overdoses.

“When I came home from that conference, with Tennessee being in the top five, I contacted Sheriff Mehr, and told him what I had just learned,” Arrington said. “Funeral directors in Madison County need to get involved locally, and across the state.

“We’re trying to make a statement anywhere we can … fairs, parades, schools, to tell people this is real, and you’ll end up in a ride like that (hearse) if you make poor choices.”

(PHOTO: Bob Arrington, Arrington Funeral Directors and John Mehr, sheriff of Madison County)
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