Four weeks after her 24-year-old son died in her arms, Berwyn nurse Beth Perz stood before of a roomful of strangers – reporters, TV cameras and county officials – and broke down. Chester County had just announced its plan to sue opioid manufacturers. And two of the targeted companies – Endo and Cephalon – made the drugs that destroyed her son.

An eleventh-hour addition to the Jan. 15 news conference, Perz had written nothing; she would wing it.

She wiped her eyes, collected herself and began: “I’m here because I have to fight this fight.”