Opiate antidote saves Warren kids, charges to be filed

Staff report

WARREN

Charges were to be filed today in Warren Municipal Court in connection with two children who were found sluggish and unresponsive by their mother Tuesday in their Randolph Street Northwest home.

Police Chief Eric Merkel said detectives likely would have a statement today on the case after charges are filed.

Reports said the children – a 9-month-old boy and a 21-month-old girl – were first taken to ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital about 11:45 a.m., and later transferred to Akron Children’s Hospital, where they were revived with the opiate antidote naloxone, according to 21 WFMJ-TV, The Vindicator’s broadcast partner.

Tim Schaffner, executive director of Trumbull County Children Services, said as of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday the children were “medically cleared,” but they were kept overnight in Akron Children’s for observation.

Reports said the 18-year-old mother was highly upset and all she could tell police was she was asleep on a sofa, and when she woke up, she found the children in the kitchen, sluggish and unresponsive.

The mother and a man, possibly the father of the children, drove them to Trumbull Memorial.

Firefighters were sent to the home of the children in the 2800 block of Randolph Street Northwest to check the home’s carbon-monoxide levels. A fire department spokesman said all carbon-monoxide levels were normal.

Schaffner said his agency has emergency temporary custody of the children and will place them in a “good, safe foster home” and eventually with a family member.

“It is our basic belief that children do best with family members,” Schaffner said.

“We were totally concentrated on getting them health care. Thank God they ended up at the hospital and got good care,” Schaffner said.

Next, he said, the agency will work with police, the prosecutor’s office and mental-health providers to determine what caused the children’s sluggishness.