A near-death experience has a recovering drug addict looking for the person he said helped save his life in more ways than one.
When 19-year-old JJ Zitouni overdosed last December, he said a stranger answered his cry for help. The teen said he's been sober ever since, and calls that moment his wake-up call.
"I consider myself very lucky," Zitouni said.
Zitouni was hiding from those who care about him at a Piggly Wiggly on Durand Avenue on December 6, around noon.
"Alcohol, and then weed, and then adderall, and then what I overdosed on was the caffeine pills that I bought from online."
He remembered being on the phone with his case worker in the alley behind the grocery store, but he couldn't explain his location. She told him to yell for help, and that's when a DiGiorno truck driver came running right before he blacked out.
"If it weren't for him I would have died," Zitouni said. "The nurses kept on telling me that people die all the time from this stuff."
Zitouni said in the last five years, he tried committing suicide more than 20 times.
"I've dealt with mental health issues, I've dealt with addiction, I've dealt with eating disorders and in my belief I feel like it would be a waste of my life to just keep it a secret."
He is speaking out in hopes of finding the man in the alley.
"He truly did save my life, and I definitely consider him my guardian angel."
Zitouni hopes his story will help save somone else.
"Honestly, I don't know until this day why I didn't die, but I definitely feel like there's a reason why I didn't."
If you know who helped save Zitouni's life, please e-mail news@tmj4.com or call 414-967-5318.
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