A New York father has turned his personal loss of his son’s overdose death into an idea to create a video game that teaches players to avoid fentanyl.

The game was released last month.

Now, the state is praising the father for his video game.

Kamal Bherwani created “Johanna’s Vision” after his son’s death.

“It’s loosely based on my family’s story. It’s about a girl who finds out her brother died of fentanyl poisoning,” he said.

In the game, the main character does not know how he died.

“She just knows that he died and it’s related to drugs. She can’t believe it because she knew that he was not a regular drug user,” he said.  

“Johanna’s Vision” mirrors the tragedy that happened to Bherwani and his family.

His son, Ethan, died of a fentanyl overdose in May 2021 after a night out with two friends at a casino. Ethan was celebrating his college graduation.

 “He wanted to be a lawyer. He was going to go on to law school. He had so many other talents – whether it was musical talents or his gift for even being a journalist. He had written articles about sports and sports journalism that were published.”

Bherwani described his son as a “humble and kind human.”

Surveillance video from Mohegan Sun casino shows the moment Ethan is sitting at a blackjack table when all of a sudden, he slumps over, falls off his chair and collapses.

“It’s hopelessness. You can’t turn time back. You look at it and you wish you were there. You wish you could save him somehow,” Bherwani said.  

As he lays on the floor – not moving – no dealers, pit bosses or any other casino employees help him.

“He was on the ground for 11 minutes before help arrives. Took them several more minutes to revive him. They never gave him Narcan,” Bherwani said.

Bherwani started working on “Johanna’s Vision” last year.

The game launched on Aug. 21 – two days after what would have been Ethan’s 26^th birthday.

He said he wanted to start a game because children and young adults get their information from their mobile phones.

“A lot of them play games. Even older people play games. It’s a great way of engaging someone. It’s much better than trying to teach them through a PowerPoint presentation or a video,” he said.

The videogame is part of his larger platform called Preclivity, which he launched the same day as Ethan’s funeral.

The funeral is where the video game starts.

“Johanna has a special gift. When she touches objects and people, she gets flashbacks. She’s able to use that power to piece together what happened to her brother,” he said.

The Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS)  took notice of Bherwani’s innovative videogame and contacted him.

“This is an emerging area where people are looking at recreational gaming and how that can be harnessed to inform the public,” said OASAS Commissioner Chinazo Cunningham.

Cunningham said education and awareness is key to stopping overdoses from happening.

The CDC reports overdose deaths dropped by 10% recently.

“It is through efforts like expanding Naloxone, which can reverse overdose deaths. We are definitely grateful to Kamal and others like him who have taken their personal tragedy and really channeled that into advocacy,” Cunningham said.

 Bherwani said it is all for Ethan.

“I saw the impact this had on my family and all of his friends –

 the pain we were going through. It was important to me at least for the part of my legacy, since Ethan’s legacy was so abruptly ended. As part of my legacy to prevent that pain from happening to other people,” he said.  

A man was convicted of selling Ethan the fentanyl-laced cocaine in the bathroom of the casino.

Just days ago, Jerrard Santiago was sentenced to 8 years in federal prison followed by 3 years of supervision after his release.

You can find “Johanna’s Vision” on the apple App store and Google play for Andriod – and it’s free.