Florida police had arrested a couple after their 3-year-old daughter overdosed on fentanyl and had to be resuscitated when her heart stopped. Authorities said that the unconscious girl had no pulse and was not breathing when Oakland Park Fire Rescue resuscitated her with Narcan, a treatment for an opioid overdose.
Jaelynn Carter was discovered unresponsive at about 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, when first responders arrived at the family's home on Northeast 33rd Street in Oakland Park. Medics intubated the child and administered Narcan to revive her on the way to Broward Health Medical Center, where toxicology tests revealed the young girl had ingested fentanyl, according to the New York Post.
Broward Sheriff's detectives said both parents claimed during separate questioning that they were together and folding laundry in the master bedroom when the child collapsed and became unresponsive.
Mom believes her daughter ate half a pill of fentanyl
Janett Carter agreed to take a drug test at the hospital, and the result was positive for fentanyl. At first, Walter Carter refused to take a drug test but later relented and tested positive for fentanyl, cocaine, and marijuana.
Janett told investigators she bought two pills from a drug dealer on Friday and thought they were oxycodone. Investigators said she believed her daughter ate half of the pill the following day.
The 38-year-old mom said she kept the pills in a plastic baggie in her purse but knew her toddler liked to rummage around in it. Detectives said that she put the pills in a plastic bottle and later flushed the baggie down the toilet at the hospital.
Both parents were arrested on Monday, June 13, according to NBC Miami. Records showed that Janett and 40-year-old Walter were booked into the Broward County Jail and charged with child neglect causing great bodily harm and drug possession.
As the couple was being booked into the county jail, cocaine and pills were found in Janett's wallet, and a baggie of marijuana was found in Walter's pocket, officials said.
Walter's bond was set at $30,000 at their first court appearance on Tuesday. He was also charged with cannabis possession. Janett's bond totaled $31,000, but she won't be getting out of jail because she violated probation on a previous unrelated grand theft charge, according to court records. She also faces a charge of cocaine possession.
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Fentanyl-related overdoses rising
According to UMass Chan Medical School, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid originally developed as an analgesic or painkiller for surgery. Drug dealers have used fentanyl analogs as an adulterant in illicit drug supplies since 1979, with fentanyl-related overdoses rising as a result.
Overdose deaths more than quadrupled, going from 8,050 in 1999 to 33,091 in 2015. More than 100,000 Americans died from a drug overdose from May 2020 to April 2021, with over 64 percent of these deaths due to synthetic opioids like fentanyl and its analogs.
