A 10-month-old baby in Massachusetts is the latest victim in the opioid crisis that has been plaguing America throughout most of 2016. State authorities say that the baby had to be revived two times after being exposed to fentanyl.
Police officers responded to a call at the Methuen residence on Saturday afternoon, saying that a child was not breathing. Emergency responders took the baby to Lawrence General Hospital, where law enforcement officer say she stopped breathing twice and had to be resuscitated. The child was later airlifted to Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where she is now reportedly in stable condition, Fox News states.
Hospital tests confirmed that the baby had the synthetic opioid fentanyl in her system. The Department of Children and Families has reportedly taken custody of the child. No one has yet been charged in the case, and the incident is currently under investigation.
The baby’s mother has been cooperating with authorities, and drug paraphernalia was found in her car. She had apparently struggled with addiction issues in the past, but has been in treatment for around a year. No drugs were found in the home, and the materials in the mother’s car were several months old, leaving the family “somewhat baffled” as to how the baby ingested fentanyl.
Police Chief Joseph Solomon said the case was “an extremely unfortunate situation in which a dangerous drug has ended up in the wrong hands and placed a baby’s life in danger.” He added,
Our main goal now is to find out how this substance ended up in the child’s system.
Fentanyl is a powerful painkiller often illegally manufactured in Mexico, China and other countries then smuggled into the United States. Federal officials note that in 2015, the drug was responsible for 745 overdose deaths in Massachusetts, which made up more than half of all overdose deaths in the state, reports The Boston Globe.
This baby is the latest in a series of opioid-related incidents among young children. Police Lieutenant Michael Pappalardo said that the baby could have taken the drug by touching or putting anything with fentanyl in her mouth. “Even small amounts, trace amounts, on an individual that small could prove to be deadly,” he said.
