The parents of an 8 year old boy have been charged with child endangerment after their son survived an overdose of heroin last month, according to police.
On January 11th the police responded to a call of a child not breathing at a home in a suburb of southwest Cleveland, Ohio. They found the boy unresponsive in the living room with his father doing chest compressions on him. The boy was transported to the hospital after an officer found a pulse. The parents, Charles Dowdy and Danielle Simko are suspected of narcotics use after drugs and syringes were found on the property, the police report stated.
The father had told police that he and the mother were in bed with their son when he noticed that the child’s lips were turning blue.
In the audio from the 911 call a man’s voice, presumably Dowdy’s, is heard pleading frantically with the dispatcher while shouting at a nearby woman. “Please hurry,” the man tells the dispatcher. The dispatcher began coaching the couple on how to perform CPR on the unresponsive child.
After the boy arrived at the hospital, the staff found prescription pills and a small bag of heroin tucked inside the boy’s sock, according to a news site in Cleveland. Dowdy admitted to the police that he had used drugs inside the house earlier that day. The parents were arrested at the hospital, the site reported.
Dowdy and Simko were charged with child endangerment and were held on $150,000 bond. They were arraigned in court on Friday and will appear at pretrial on February 22nd, according to court reports.
If you or someone you love is suspected of child endangerment, call Orange County criminal defense lawyer Staycie R. Sena at (949) 477-8088 for a consultation now.