USA: Heroin addicted mother over shattering photo

In October 2016, Erika Hurt drove in Indiana to the parking lot of a one-dollar shop. She was on her way to her mother. She took an injection and put a shot of heroin in her car. Her son, ten months old, watched.

Policemen found the then 25-year-old woman unconscious, the syringe was still in her hand, as the "Washington Post" writes. A policeman's bodycam image was later published by the Hope township guard - and shared hundreds of thousands of times on the net. The image of the young, unconscious woman has become a symbol of the drug crisis in the United States (read more here).

"I was at the bottom of my life," Hurt says, three years later, the Washington Post. Today she is 28 - and claims to have been clean for three years.

When she saw how many times the police photo had been shared on the net, she felt incredibly ashamed and embarrassed. "I was scared to lose my son and I wondered if I could ever be clean."

Now a new photo of the 28-year-olds is spread on Facebook: It shows her with her son, laughing. Hurt wrote: Millions of people have seen her after an overdose. "None of them seems to have time to ask for me, so here's an update: Today I celebrated that I've been clean for three years and my son has his mother back." That's a post that should go viral.

And it actually happened: The contribution has been shared a hundred thousand times. She has received thousands of encouraging messages, Hurt told the Post.

After her overdose, she spent two months in prison and then six months in a rehabilitation center. Her son had lived with her mother during this time.

After every visit she cried: Her son did not recognize her because he had seen her so seldom. She missed many important steps in his development: his first words, his first attempts, his first birthday. "I did not experience all this because I was locked up."

Hurt now helps drug addicts: She is working as an addiction counselor. One day she wanted to show her son the picture of her crash. They hope that he will learn from it.