This story was edited to include a comment from Masimo, the makers of the Bridge device.
Medical examiners believe fentanyl caused the death of a woman who was seeking help for addiction while at the Chesterfield County Jail.
Amanda Moore died on May 26. For two days, she had tried a new technology — a headset that uses electricity to neutralize the pain of drug withdrawal.
The device, called a Bridge, affixed electrical sensors around Moore’s ears. On May 25, Moore took off the device. The next day, she died.
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For several weeks, it was unclear if the device played any role. The company, a California-based health tech firm called Masimo, did not comment while awaiting the results of an autopsy.
Inmates with substance use disorder spend time in recovery at the Chesterfield County Jail in May. The jail introduced a technological device to its inmates called the Bridge, which helps them through withdrawals from opioids, which can be horrific and painful.
The death came three days after Times-Dispatch reporters visited the jail to do a story on the device. At the time, Moore was wearing the Bridge in the jail’s dedicated recovery ward, a unit known as HARP, or Helping Addicts Recover Progressively.
Days before, she had been tested by jail staff, who found fentanyl and amphetamines in her system upon arrival, according to Chesterfield Sheriff Karl Leonard.
Sitting in a circle with around 20 other women, Moore appeared anxious, but said the device made her withdrawal manageable.
“It’s definitely helping,” Moore said at the time. “Usually if I was detoxing, I’d be in my bed. I’d be tossing and turning, miserable, not able to sit up straight and participate. It really does work.”
Moore, 34, had described being an on-and-off user of heroin and methamphetamines for 12 years.
A Bridge device looks like a wired headset, with three points of contact around the ear.
Currently, there is no indication that it directly caused her death.
In response to questions, company spokeswoman Irene Mulonni said Masimo did an investigation into Moore's death.
"Given the fact that Ms. Moore was no longer wearing the device and that the cause of death was determined to be opioid overdose, there is no indication that the device contributed to the cause of death in any way," said Mulonni. As a company, we remain committed to fighting the opioid epidemic that took Ms. Moore’s life and so many others.”
In previous interviews, the company’s head of clinical research said the device was safe and designed to neutralize the discomfort and pain associated with opioid withdrawal. The device was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2020.
Mulonni reiterated that the device has been proven safe and was operating as intended while being worn by Moore.
Leonard said the medical examiner found 0.01 milligrams of fentanyl in Moore’s body. As of Thursday morning, Leonard said he had reached out to understand more detail about how she could have died from such a low dose.
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Fentanyl is known to be deadly in miniscule capacities, but Leonard noted that the amount “seemed small.”
Leonard investigated the death by watching jail footage in the lead-up to her death. He does not believe she ingested fentanyl while incarcerated.
“We don’t have any evidence that she took anything while in here,” Leonard said. “I believe it’s residual in her system. And unfortunately, it’s tragic that anybody passes from it, but that’s this disease of addiction.”
The HARP pod where Moore was staying is lined with the faces of participants who succumbed to addiction — typically after they graduate from the program. Kerri Rhodes, a licensed counselor whose son Taylor died of an opioid overdose in 2019, runs the program.
The HARP pod has won national acclaim in recent years for its work in pushing inmates toward sobriety. It recently introduced the Bridge device and had used it on 17 others before offering the device to Moore.
8 photos from The Times-Dispatch archives
This October 1988 image shows East Broad Street looking west into downtown Richmond from Church Hill. That month, radio stations WRVA-AM and WRVQ-FM announced plans to leave their Church Hill studio building after 20 years for new space in South Richmond.
In February 1971, James Herbert Bryant (left) and Paul Jackson assessed construction on their new McDonald’s restaurant on Mechanicsville Turnpike in Richmond. The city natives started Bryant-Jackson Corp. and invested about $300,000 to build the restaurant.
In July 1967, beauty queens and convertibles gathered on Interstate 64 to celebrate a new 9-mile stretch of highway from the Bryan Park area at Interstate 95 to Short Pump in Henrico County. In lieu of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the $23 million project, the lead car drove over a traffic counter cable.
In May 1959, Ronald Yaffe performed a levitation magic trick. Yaffe, a 19-year-old freshman at Richmond Professional Institute, planned to study optometry but enjoyed performing magic as a hobby.
In February 1959, the parking lot was full at the new Food Fair grocery store on West Broad Street in Richmond, near downtown. The chain, founded in Pennsylvania, was one of the largest in the country at the time and was planning a half-dozen or more stores in the Richmond area. (The grand opening here was supposed to feature retired Army Gen. Omar Bradley, who was on Food Fair’s board of directors, but he instead had to appear as a witness at a trial.)
In July 1966, master craftsman G.H. Boyer (right) gave apprentice Carl C. Spivey instructions on how to inlay wood at Biggs Antique Co. on West Marshall Street in Richmond. Biggs was a leading U.S. manufacturer of Colonial reproduction furniture, and its work could be found in private homes as well as the Hotel John Marshall and the Miller & Rhoads Tea Room. Biggs was purchased in 1975 by the Kittinger Co., which had a long association with Colonial Williamsburg.
This October 1943 image shows a building near West Cary and South Nansemond streets in Richmond’s Carytown area. Built around 1851, it once served as a tollkeeper’s home but later became an office for Williams & Harvey Nursery. A shopping center is on the site today.
This April 1955 image shows The Hauke Press, a commercial printing business at 6 E. Main St. in downtown Richmond. The firm, which printed everything from newsletters to stamps, was owned at the time by Heywood Hartley, who also was a dog breeder and served as president of the Virginia Kennel Club.
