9-Month-Old Baby Gets Narcan After Accidental Overdose In Philly: Police

MANAYUNK, PHILADELPHIA – A child was found with a hypodermic needle in its leg in Manayunk Wednesday evening and an adult male has been charged in connection with the incident, according to Philadelphia Police and court records.

Police said officers and medics were called to the 200 block of Green Lane Wednesday at about 6:30 p.m. for a report of a child being stuck with a needle.

Police and medics found a 9-month-old girl unresponsive and administered a dose of Narcan, an opioid-overdose reversing medication, to revive the girl, police said.

Medics took the child to Chestnut Hill Hospital and treated her for an accidental overdose, police said.

Police said the child is in stable condition at the hospital.

Steven Richard Welsh, 35, of Philadelphia, has been charged with aggravated assault; endangering the welfare of a child with a parent or guardian committing the offense; simple assault with the victim under 12 years old and defendant 18 years or older; and recklessly endangering another person.

Welsh was held on 10 percent of $10,000 bail after being arraigned Thursday, court records show. Welsh is slated to appear for a preliminary hearing on July 18, according to court records.

Police could not say if this was the youngest Narcan administration they have seen.

The Special Victims unit are investigating the incident, police said.

More than 2,000 opioid overdoses in Pennsylvania have been reversed by naloxone since November of 2014, Gov. Tom Wolf said back in December.

Wolf said that there were more than 3,500 drug overdoses in Pennsylvania in 2015. Opioid overdoses have been on the increase everywhere in recent months and years.

The Drug Enforcement Administration recently announced overdose deaths were up 37 percent in Pennsylvania in 2016.

There were 4,642 drug-related overdose deaths — approximately 13 people a day — in Pennsylvania in 2016, said Gary Tuggle, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Philadelphia Field Division. That's a 37 percent increase from 2015 and establishes a death rate for 36.5 per 100,000 people.

Back in May, an 11-year-old girl was treated for an overdose with Narcan in the Pittsburgh area.

A paramedic who spoke to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette told the outlet the 11 year old was the youngest overdose victim she had encountered in her 24-year career as a paramedic, save from toddlers who accidentally ingested a drug.

According to Pennsylvania Department of Health Statistics, 14 Pennsylvanians from birth to age 14 died from drug-induced deaths between 2011 and 2015.

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