A 1-year-old playing in the backyard with his siblings suffered an opioid overdose Tuesday in Akron, Ohio, less than one week after an infant died from an overdose in the city.
The 27-year-old mother told officers her 5-year-old and 7-year-old daughters were playing with the baby in their yard Tuesday night when she noticed the infant acting strangely. She said he was staggering while slipping in and out of consciousness before passing out completely. The mother rushed the boy to Akron Children’s Hospital, where doctors revived him with a injection of the overdose reversal drug Narcan, reports FOX 8.
Authorities do not yet know the specific opioid ingested by the infant or how he may have come into contact with it.
“This is just a tragedy,” Lt. Rick Edwards, with the Akron Police Department, told FOX 8. “We had a 2-year-old a 6-year-old and now this is the second one-year-old in a week. It’s hard to tell at this point; it’s under investigation how the baby got the opiate into his system and where it came from.”
An 18-month old boy died from a suspected opioid overdose Sunday in Akron after his 9-year-old brother saw him playing with a drug baggie belonging to their mother.
The infant’s brother called police to their home June 1 after he saw that the baby had stopped breathing. First responders 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 by paramedics stabilized the infant, but he died Sunday at Akron Children’s Hospital.
The mother, Destaine Carter, originally dialed 911 but hung up before officers could get an address Thursday. The 9-year-old boy tried to get his mom back on the phone to speak with the dispatcher but was unsuccessful. The mother fled the scene when police arrived and was later arrested in another county for an outstanding warrant.
The infant’s brother is currently in the custody of Summit County Children Services.
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