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Infants apparently consumed an opiate, Warren police say
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Police Capt. Robert Massucci called it a “sad state of affairs” that siblings – a girl, 21 months, and a boy, 9 months – had to be revived with naloxone, the opiate-reverseal drug, at ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital on Tuesday after they apparently ate an opiate.
At a news conference Wednesday, a detective with the Warren Police Department said he expects numerous charges to be filed against individuals involved in the incident.
The mother of the two children, who is 18 and lives on Randolph Street Northwest, is the main suspect in the case, police said. She is the primary caregiver and was at the house when the children became unresponsive, Detective Nick Carney said.
Charges are likely within several days, after toxicology results are received. The results will tell police whether an opiate was involved, Carney said. The children arrived at the hospital at 11:45 a.m. sluggish and unresponsive.
The parents did not tell medical staff what was wrong with the infants, with the mother being highly upset, police said.
“If we had known quicker, we could have found out much quicker” what was wrong, Massucci said.
Carney said evidence in the case, which he would not divulge, indicates criminal conduct occurred. The children were in a position that they shouldn’t have been,” Carney said.
After medical personnel at the hospital considered different reasons for the condition of the children, such as carbon monoxide poisoning, a doctor administered naloxone to the older child, and she responded and started to behave more normally and smiled, Massucci said.
After that it was “pretty clear” that the sluggishness was the result of an opiate, Carney said. The realization that children that small might have consumed an opiate and overdosed was a first for both officers, they said.
“This is uncharted,” Carney said, adding that it’s unclear how much of a drug it would take to produce that effect in a small child.
Both children received a dose of naloxone at Trumbull Memorial and another dose at Akron Children’s Hospital. They remained at Akron Children’s on Wednesday and will remain there through today for observation. Both are doing well, police said.
When they leave the hospital, they will be in the custody of Trumbull County Children Services, Carney said.
The mother was cooperative during more than two hours of interviews with police. “We have pretty much the whole picture,” Carney said of what led up to the apparent overdoses.
“We’re just glad the children are still with us,” Carney added.
Trumbull County, which had a record number of drug overdose deaths in 2015, is in the midst of another overdose spike, Trumbull County Corner Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk said Wednesday. There were four overdose deaths in three days this week, he said Wednesday. Final overdose-death totals for 2015 are not yet complete.