First responders successfully revived a 1-year-old infant suffering a suspected opioid overdose after his brother told police he saw the infant playing with a baggie containing powder.
Police in Ohio responded to an emergency call Thursday from a 9-year-old boy from Akron who said his infant brother had stopped breathing. The boy’s mother originally dialed 911 but hung up before officers could get an address. The unidentified 9-year-old provided an address and stayed on the phone with the dispatcher until paramedics arrived, reports Fox 8.
The boy tried to get his mom back on the phone to speak with the dispatcher but was unsuccessful. The mother, Destaine Carter, fled the scene when police arrived and was later arrested in another county for an outstanding warrant. Paramedics gave the baby one dose of the overdose reversal drug Narcan at the home before rushing him to a hospital. A second dose of Narcan at the hospital stabilized the infant, who is recovering.
“He’s a hero,” Lt. Rick Edwards, with the Akron Police Department, told Fox 8. “He did everything he can do and anything we’d expect. But at this age its heartbreaking to put the 9-year-old in that position where you have to call police and paramedics for 1-year-old.”
The baby’s brother told police he saw him playing with a baggie that had residue in it, which officials are currently testing. Authorities said the infant is the youngest victim of an opioid overdose in Akron. Carter’s kids are currently in the custody of Summit County Children Services.
Ohio is being hit particularly hard by the national opioid epidemic, which claimed a record 33,000 lives in the U.S. in 2015. The opioid death rate in the state spiked 13 percent between 2014 and 2015, among the largest increases in the country. Heroin deaths increased by nearly 20 percent over the same period, claiming 1,444 lives.
Officials in Ohio say opioids are also the main driver of a 19 percent spike in the number of kids removed from parental custody to foster care since 2010.
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