Officials in Washington are sounding alarms after a baby died, and two others apparently overdosed, in the past week in separate instances in which fentanyl had been left unsecured inside residences.
A 911 caller on Wednesday afternoon reported that a 13-month-old baby was not breathing in an apartment in Everett, a city near Seattle, the Daily Herald reported. The baby died later at a hospital, according to authorities. The Snohomish county medical examiner’s office will determine the baby’s official cause and manner of death, officials said.
Last Saturday, firefighters were called to a residence after an 11-month-old was found unresponsive by the parents, a news release from the Everett fire and police departments said. The baby was given the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone before firefighters arrived and provided further medical care, authorities said. The infant was then taken to a hospital and has since been released.
On Wednesday morning, a 911 caller said a six-month-old baby was having trouble breathing. Firefighters found the infant unresponsive and administered medical care, including Narcan. The baby was in stable condition at Seattle children’s hospital, according to the news release.
Investigators do not believe the cases are connected, police said. They didn’t release further information, including whether anyone had been arrested, because they said the cases remain under investigation.
“The city of Everett is deeply concerned about the increasing fentanyl overdoses that involve young children,” the news release said, adding that misuse of opioids and fentanyl is a growing concern in the state and across the US.
Fentanyl is a notoriously powerful drug that, in powder form, increasingly has been cut into heroin and other drugs. It has been a main driver of the US overdose epidemic in recent years. Children are especially vulnerable to overdosing, as ingesting even small amounts of the opioid’s residue can be fatal.
In 2022, 38 children under age 18 died from an opioid-related overdose in Washington, according to state health department data – more than three times as many as in 2019, the Seattle Times reported. All but one were tied to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the data showed.
Drug overdose deaths in the US went up slightly in 2022 after two big jumps during the Covid pandemic, and provisional data for the first nine months of 2023 suggests it inched up again last year.