OVERLAND, Mo. – The family of a 5-year-old wants to know what happened at school that required a trip to the hospital and resuscitation by the heroin overdose medicine Narcan.
The incident occurred on April 26 in the middle of the school day at Marion Elementary School in Overland.
The family’s attorney, Ben Tobin, told us, “He was minutes away from dying due to an opioid overdose.”
Tobin walked into Ritenour School District headquarters Friday with the victim’s mom and grandma, whose identities are remaining private for the sake of the child.
“We’re trying to get answers here. I’m trying to help them get these answers,” Tobin added.
He says the family dropped off the child at school at 8:30 that morning with no signs of trouble. Three hours and 22 minutes later, there was a reported emergency call. The Community Fire Protection District confirmed to FOX 2 that they transported a 5-year-old from Marion Elementary to Mercy Hospital at 11:42 a.m. on April 26.
“They said he was unconscious, non-responsive throughout his arrival at the hospital… and was injected with Narcan, which was a life-saving measure in this case,” Tobin said.
Narcan is an emergency medicine that rapidly reverses the effects of opioids. The child did recover and was released from the hospital.
FOX 2 sat down with the district superintendent, who told us the district intends to get to the bottom of this. He added that the district made a child safety hotline call, involved police and alerted families with a statement that said in part, “We have had reports of elementary-age students becoming sick after consuming unknown substances and items they believed to be candy but were possibly laced with unknown drugs. Although the students became ill at the time, we were relieved to report that they made a full recovery.”
“They say that right now they have no idea where my client got these opioids from,” Tobin said.
The superintendent told us they have no confirmation of what type of drugs were involved, with hopes that testing and further investigation will give answers.