LORAIN, Ohio -- When Lori Guest's daughter Tera died of a heroin overdose, she said she couldn't let grief consume her or she risked losing another daughter who struggled with the same addiction.
Tera Guest, 24, died Jan. 29, 2014, shortly after she and her sister used painkillers and a heroin-fentanyl mix. Her death marked the end of a two-year period that included stints in treatment and losing custody of her two children to her mother.
Tera is among the hundreds who have died of overdoses within the last three years in Lorain County. The county coroner's office said a record 67 people died in 2013, followed by 60 in 2014 and 62 in 2015.
Lori Guest decided to use her heartache from losing Tera as motivation to save her daughter Ginny.
"I lost one daughter," Lori said. "I wasn't ready to lose another."
Lori Guest soon formed the Lorain Community Task Force. The citizen-led group raises awareness of drug addiction, provides grant money to send addicts to treatment centers and organizes events for families affected by addiction.
Now Ginny Guest has been sober for more than a year, and Lori's other children and stepchildren are active in the task force she created.
"As a mother, I couldn't just put [Tera] in the ground and walk away," Lori said. "I needed to do something."
Yet the devastation from losing a daughter remains. Lori never dreamed that Tera -- who grew up as an "average girl" who loved to draw and kept up good grades in school - would develop an addiction.
"I taught my kids about stranger danger and other things," Guest said. "We never discussed heroin. I never thought it would be part of our lives."
Tera first used painkillers while recovering from a broken ankle. Doctors first prescribed Percocet before transitioning her to Oxycontin. When those prescriptions expired she began using heroin.
Tera maintained a job as a nurse and kept her mother in the dark regarding her heroin use. Lori didn't know Tera was using heroin until she was evicted from the Lorain apartment where she lived with her two children early in 2013.
Lori was shocked when she went back to the apartment to retrieve some of her grandchildren's belongings.
"That's when I found the needles, and the spoons, and the signs that there was heroin use going on," she said. "I didn't want to believe that my daughters would use heroin."
Lori took custody of her two grandchildren - who were 4 and 6 years old at the time - while her daughter spent the next six months living in her car. Tera eventually relented and agreed to seek treatment.
Tera had been out of treatment just two weeks when Ginny told her that she had an old, unfilled painkiller prescription. The sisters used pills before buying the heroin-fentanyl mix that caused Tera's death.
The Lorain Community Task Force's first major event took place June 13, 2014 outside the Lorain Police Department. Guest and several dozen others rallied to voice their frustration with the heroin epidemic killing their loved ones.
Two years later Guest is still focused on spreading the message.
"I wasn't ashamed Tera died of a heroin overdose," Guest said. "I wanted the world to know that's what took her."