Summit County’s opiate crisis this year has taken an unsettling new turn, hitting toddlers who don’t know the difference between candy and heroin or some other dangerous drug.
A 1-year-old Akron boy apparently overdosed on opioids Tuesday night and was revived at Akron Children’s Hospital with naloxone, the generic name for the drug that reverses the effects of opioids, police said. How the child from Akron’s Sherbondy Hill neighborhood got hold of the opioids — and what drugs were involved — is unclear.
He is the third toddler in Akron believed to have overdosed on opioids this year. Summit County Children Services said it has handled those cases and two others involving toddlers possibly exposed to opioids.
All five involved children 3 years old or younger, said Ann Ream, community relations director for Children Services.
Four of the toddlers survived. But 1½-year-old Tymaine Thompson died Sunday, three days after being exposed to heroin, fentanyl or some other opiate at his West Hill home.
In addition, a 6-year-old Akron girl overdosed in March after ingesting an opiate — possibly heroin, fentanyl or the potent carfentanil, according to Akron police. She was revived with two doses of naloxone.
“We’re in new terrain here,” Ream said.
In all of 2016, Ream said Children Services handled only one case of children directly exposed to opiates: Andrew Frye, 16, who died of a heroin overdose at a Green motel where his mother and a friend used the drug, too. Frye’s grandmother supplied the heroin.
The case drew national attention because of the family’s involvement. Yet Andrew was old enough to know what he was putting in his body.
This year’s cases involving toddlers, while small in number, are different.
“Who would have ever thought we’d be dealing with these little ones?” Ream said. “We’re alarmed and disturbed like the rest of the community.”
Toddlers are vulnerable in the opiate crisis because they are crawling and exploring, seeing things at eye level or under furniture that adults might not notice, Dr. Sarah Friebert, director of pediatric palliative care at Akron Children’s Hospital, has said. Friebert is spearheading a new office of addiction services at the hospital to help children and families during the opiate crisis.
National crisis
How many children are at risk is unclear.
But nationwide, thousands of children are hospitalized every year for prescription opioid poisonings, according to a Yale University study published in 2016 and based on hospital discharge records over a 16-year period.
Toddlers have been the hardest hit during the prescription opioid crisis, with the numbers of hospitalization related to opiates more than doubling between 1997 to 2012, the study revealed.
“We know this is happening, but no one knows why,” Julie Gaither, the study’s author, said Wednesday.
Gaither said she is working on a follow-up study to identify potential causes. The study won’t be done until next year, she said, “but anecdotally, it’s not so much little kids getting into their parents pill bottles.”
Parents, she said, are leaving their drugs out for their children to find.
Suboxone, a prescription drug used to reduce symptoms of opiate addiction and withdrawal, for example, comes in little film strips, she said.
“All it takes is a child to touch his tongue to a strip,” she said.
Likewise, residue from an empty bag of heroin — particularly one laced with fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin, or carfentanil, which is 100 times stronger than fentanyl — can kill a child, police say.
Investigators still are piecing together how two Akron toddlers overdosed since Thursday.
In the first case, Tymaine Thompson’s 9-year-old brother told a 911 dispatcher that the family took a nap for about two hours Thursday. When they awoke, Tymaine wasn’t breathing.
In Tuesday’s case, the child’s mother told police she noticed her son was acting strangely and losing his balance outside their home in the 800 block of Raymond Street. The woman took the toddler to Akron Children’s Hospital after he slipped in and out of consciousness, police said.
No charges have been filed in either case.
Speaking up
Andrea Boxill, deputy director of Gov. John Kasich’s Cabinet Opiate Action Team, said Wednesday she knew of other children in Ohio who have overdosed on opiates.
“We’ve certainly heard of other stories,” Boxill said. “But they’re rare.”
She said state and local authorities have worked to get Ohioans to properly dispose of drugs they are not using. There are 14 sites and police and fire departments, along with Summa’s Akron and Barberton campuses, that offer the service in Summit County.
But that doesn’t necessarily work for those with addiction, she said.
“Their brains have been hijacked; logical thinking has been compromised,” Boxill said.
Boxill said it’s time for anyone who has a friend or family member using opiates to have a frank and honest conversation about the danger to children. Tell users they must lock up their drugs and their paraphernalia in a box where children can’t reach them.
“We are not whispering about the opioid epidemic, nor should we,” Boxill said. “And talking isn’t condoning drug use, it’s being realistic.”
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.