Sunday, June 15, 2014
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
A 29-year-old Taft Avenue man was arrested on child endangering and drug and drug paraphernalia possession charges after his young son found him unresponsive due to a heroin overdose in a van outside a Glenwood Avenue discount store and called 911.
Arrested and hospitalized for observation at St. Elizabeth Health Center under a police hold Friday afternoon was Franklin Barwick, who police said awakened and admitted to paramedics that he had injected himself with heroin.
Police warned Barwick, who is due in municipal court Monday, that he’d be charged with escape if he left the hospital.
Upon returning to the van from the store, where he had gone to buy a drink, the boy told police he found his father, whose lips had begun to turn blue, not breathing.
Police said they found a bloody hypodermic needle on the passenger side of the van, which was parked outside Family Dollar, 2708 Glenwood Ave.
Barwick’s wife arrived, upset with him, and told police she would never have let their son accompany him if she had known he had relapsed into drug abuse.