Karina Angelopolus bolted from her car when she spotted the crashed vehicle on Grove Street in Brockton, desperate to help the driver inside.
 She grabbed the man's wrist to take his pulse. It was racing.
 "He looked like a businessman," she said. "There was a tie on the seat next to him. There was a suit jacket in the back seat."
 Then Angelopolus, kneeling next to the driver, glanced at the car floor.
 "I saw on the floor a hypodermic needle," she said. "Then I saw his vein was big and bulging out. He overdosed. He was alive. He just passed out. He couldn't even wait until he got home to shoot up. He had to do it in the car. I was so mad."
 Angelopolus had never met a heroin addict, and doesn't know anyone who uses heroin. But that day, while taking her children to the doctor, she saw the face of the drug.
 Throughout the region, people like Angelopolus are discovering their lives intersecting with heroin addicts in ways they never considered, and ways that often put them at risk.
 Lilia Shani of Taunton goes to a bank on Route 44 in Raynham that was robbed by an addict.
 "You don't feel safe," she said. "You don't know when something could happen. It's not just in the city anymore."
 Bob Curtis was working in his Avon store when he was robbed. Page 1

 There is also time spent by police investigating drug-related cases.
 Easton police once spent two days investigating a reported kidnapping of a 32-year-old drug-addicted man - only to learn he faked the abduction to get cash from his wealthy father.
 "That is one example of the extent they will go to get money for drugs," Easton Deputy Police Chief Allen Krajcik said. "It gets a hold of them, and all they live for is to satisfy that craving."
 But the price paid by a community can be more difficult to see.
 "When parents realize the kid down the street, the kid they saw play Little League, is now snorting heroin and shooting heroin, they feel very threatened for their own well-being and the well-being of their own children," Mark Dunay, a Plymouth psychologist, said.
 John Kironyo, owner of Prospect Market in Brockton, sees the faces of young adults on the streets, struggling with addiction. "They are from every little town you can imagine," he said. "Most of the young users are no fools. They are college material, they are very smart."
 Kironyo said he sees some sleeping in bushes and sees their families scouring the streets, looking for them.
 "To see how people get destroyed, to see how good people lose respect for themselves, it is very sad," he said.
 John Downing, owner of O'Duinann's bar in Taunton, said he has seen how heroin can cripple young lives - and has tried to help some addicts get treatment. "My personal, gut feeling is that our best answer is education and control," he said.
 Kironyo said people need to do something now.
 "It is all our problem, and it is all our pain," he said. "Any of our children can be victims."

 Maureen Boyle can be reached at mboyle@enterprisenews.com.