Kennewick 20-year-old wrestled with the ‘demon of addiction’ for control of his life
All Christopher I. Hernandez wanted was his family back in his life.
The Kennewick 20-year-old found a surrogate family with Jennifer Humphries, and spent time with her husband and son.
“He wanted his dad in his life so bad, so a lot of times he would just follow my husband around,” she told the Herald.
She posted this week on Facebook about the young man who had become part of her family and his struggles with a fentanyl addiction. She said Hernandez desperately wanted to be free of it but couldn’t break his dependence.
He died early Tuesday in a car crash near Columbia Park.
Hernandez was driving a stolen Toyota Camry when a Kennewick police officer noticed the license plates on the car didn’t match, and he signaled for the car to stop about 3:30 a.m., said Kennewick Sgt. Chris Littrell.
He sped off, heading east from Edison Street on Highway 240. The police officer didn’t pursue, but followed at a distance.
But Hernandez lost control near Columbia Park and crossed the medium into the westbound lanes. He was thrown from the car in the crash and could not be revived.
Preliminary test results show he had drugs in his system but it’s unclear what type.
“He really did hate his addiction,” Humphries said. “I think society thinks that people in addiction enjoy it or enjoy committing crimes, and that really isn’t true. ... It’s not an excuse for criminal behavior, but the people behind that are very tortured.”
She knows Hernandez’s mother and father in Tri-Cities, but said he had grown up separated from them.
After moving to the Tri-Cities in his late teens, he started hanging around Humphries and her family when he needed a friendly face. She started treating him like family.
When he wasn’t caught up in his addiction, he was the type of person who would give someone the shirt off of his back, she said.
One of the pictures she has of him is when he was sitting with her 13-year-old son at a pancake house after Hernandez got out of a drug detox program in November.
“He was so happy because he had just gotten out of detox a few days earlier, and he was clean and looking forward to treatment,” she said.
He stayed with her while waiting for some longer-term treatment, but he didn’t end up finishing.
“Isaiah wanted a family so bad. He wanted a truck. He wanted a real life. But that demon of addiction had a grip on him so tight,” Humphries said in a comment on her post. “Pray for your families and everyone else’s.”
