Girard father charged with child endangering, after officials find passed-out boy

Staff report

GIRARD

A city man faces a child-endangering charge after officials responded Wednesday to a home where an autistic teenage boy was passed out after reportedly being exposed to generator exhaust fumes.

Girard police and fire officials responded to the house about 10:45 p.m. and heard alarms going off, according to a police report.

Officials were not immediately able to enter the home because a reading showed carbon-monoxide levels high enough to be life-threatening, a fire department official said.

Officials found the teenage boy lying on the floor of the home, unable to move. Medics dragged him out of the house and began treatment, a report says.

The boy’s clothes were saturated with vomit, feces and urine, officers reported. His mother told police the boy has autism and that he had been vomiting uncontrollably the past several days.

The boy’s father, Thomas File, 48, who lives at the house, told police he had generators running for four hours, but that they were properly ventilated because he would not put his family in danger, a report states.

A police report details cockroaches and piles of garbage throughout the home and describes the home’s condition as “deplorable.”

File will be arraigned Feb. 16 in Girard Municipal Court on the first-degree misdemeanor child-endangering charge.

The boy was transported to ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital for evaluation. The police report says the mother was not charged.