Methamphetamine is a drug that can scourge a community on many levels. It can leave families torn apart, futures destroyed, and neighborhoods in danger.

However, the ones hurt the most by meth are the ones affected by the drug through no fault of their own. Thousands of children live in homes where the drug is used, sold or manufactured.

They are meth’s tiniest victims. They are drug endangered children, toddlers and infants caught in the crossfire.

A drug endangered child from right here in Central Wisconsin recently shared her heart-wrenching childhood story with NewsChannel 7.

Twenty-year-old Angel Fremming glanced back over the years and recalled some happy times in her childhood. She remembered spending days at the beach, picking pumpkins and sharing the holidays with family, but behind all the smiles in her somewhat seemingly normal childhood was a dangerous and frightening secret.

“My dad was a meth user,” Angel said. “He would make meth labs.”

Angel says at one point her family was pretty typical, until things started spiraling out of control.

“I wasn’t aware of the drugs because I was so young not to understand what was going on in the house,” Angel said. “All I knew is that my dad was a completely different person and our family and my school grades were falling apart.”

She recalled her parents becoming neglectful. Angel said at one point things got so bad they had no electricity or running water.

And just when she and her siblings though things couldn’t get any worse, meth turned Angel’s dad into a violent man.

“It was a very dangerous home,” she said. “He hit me and my brother with belts and extension cords. He was just very abusive.”

When Angel confided in a school counselor, that counselor called her father. That was the day he threatened to take his own daughter’s life.

“My dad came running upstairs and held me up to my wall in my bedroom and choked me,” she said. “He said, ‘if you want to die I’ll kill you myself.’”

Angel survived the physical and emotional terror of her childhood, but ultimately, she followed her parents down the same dangerous path.

She became depressed, started doing drugs and joined a gang.

Then at the young age of sixteen, her whole world changed.

“Both of my parents were sent to prison.”

But this isn’t where her story ends.

To read the rest of Angel’s story follow the links on the left.