Officers in Washington are sounding alarms after a child died, and two others apparently additionally overdosed, up to now week in separate cases during which fentanyl was left unsecured inside residences.
A 911 caller on Wednesday afternoon reported {that a} 13-month-old child was not inhaling an condominium in Everett, a metropolis close to Seattle, the Every day Herald reported. The newborn died later at a hospital, based on authorities. The Snohomish county medical expert’s workplace will decide the newborn’s official trigger and method of loss of life, officers stated.
Final Saturday, firefighters had been referred to as to a residence after an 11-month-old was discovered unresponsive by the mother and father, a information launch from the Everett hearth and police departments stated. The newborn was given the opioid overdose reversal remedy naloxone earlier than firefighters arrived and supplied additional medical care, authorities stated. The toddler was then taken to a hospital and has since been launched.
On Wednesday morning, a 911 caller stated a six-month-old child was having hassle respiration. Arriving firefighters discovered the toddler unresponsive and administered medical care, together with Narcan. The newborn was in secure situation at Seattle kids’s hospital, based on the information launch.
Investigators don’t imagine the circumstances are related, police stated. They didn’t launch additional info, together with whether or not anybody has been arrested, as a result of they stated the circumstances stay below investigation.
“Town of Everett is deeply involved concerning the growing fentanyl overdoses that contain younger kids,” the information launch stated, including that misuse of opioids and fentanyl is a rising concern within the state and throughout the US.
Fentanyl is a notoriously highly effective drug that, in powder type, more and more has been lower into heroin or different medication. It has been a primary driver of the US overdose epidemic in recent times. Kids are particularly weak to overdosing, as ingesting even small quantities of the opioid’s residue could be deadly.
In 2022, state well being division knowledge exhibits Washington noticed 38 kids below 18 die from an opioid-related overdose – greater than 3 times as many as in 2019, The Seattle Occasions reported. All however one had been tied to artificial opioids like fentanyl, based on state division of well being knowledge.
Drug overdose deaths within the US went up barely in 2022 after two huge jumps in the course of the Covid pandemic, and provisional knowledge for the primary 9 months of 2023 suggests it inched up once more final 12 months.
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