Florida Couple Charged After Toddler Nearly Died From Cocaine Overdose
A Florida couple has been charged with child neglect after their 21-month-old baby lost consciousness and breathing due to cocaine overdose.
Kaitlyn Van Dorn, and her partner, Blake Pavey, were issued with arrest warrants this week in relation to the January 8 incident when the child was found unconscious and not breathing.
Florida Couple on Toddler's Cocaine Overdose
According to WATE, the Sarasota County sheriff's deputies, who first responded to the incident, said that Kaitlyn Van Dorn told them that the toddler put something in his mouth while on a neighborhood walk.
Van Dorn noted that the toddler picked up an unknown object from the ground and placed it in his mouth. Afterward, the child started to stumble and became limp before losing consciousness.
The medical personnel, who responded to the emergency, administered three doses of Naloxone to the toddler. Naloxone is a medication that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.
Because of the medicine, the toddler quickly regained consciousness and became alert. The child was taken to the hospital afterward for testing.
Kaitlyn Van Dorn told the deputies that the toddler was picking up rocks around the neighborhood using a teal bucket. The 33-year-old woman said the child might have picked up a needle cap along the route that she crushed in his mouth.
Deputies returned to the home of Van Dorn in Venice, Florida, where they found the bucket behind a closed door. Inside the bucket was a silver spoon and a used tissue, both of the items were consistent with the ingestion of drugs.
The Florida Department of Children and Families visited the home of the Florida couple later that evening with deputies, who found a crack pipe during their search. The spoon tested positive for cocaine and Fentanyl, while the pipe tested positive for cocaine.
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Florida Couple Deny Wrongdoing
Blake Pavey told the deputies that he did not accompany his partner, Kaitlyn Van Dorn, during the walk but he supported her story that the toddler must have ingested something that he picked up in the neighborhood.
But the detectives launched an investigation regarding the incident. And after several months of trying to obtain hospital medical records related to the toxicity levels of the child, authorities have confirmed that the child had overdosed on cocaine, Fox News reported.
The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Kaitlyn Perez said they were not able to recover any sign of a walk even taking place. So based on their investigation, Perez said they strongly believed that the child ingested those drugs inside the home of the Florida couple.
The 34-year-old Pavey told WFLA that it was "a horrible accident." However, he did not go into detail about how the child ingested the drugs.
Perez said her heart breaks for the child. She added that other detectives see things like this all the time, but it is particularly difficult when it involves a child.
"An innocent, helpless child who should not be in the environment that he has been forced to be in," Perez noted.
Blake Pavey was released on a $15,000 bond, while Kaitlyn Van Dorn remains in custody without bond concerning a charge for violating drug offender probation.
The Florida couple was taken into custody on Saturday, May 30, and the toddler has not been in the care of either parent since January.
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WATCH: Parents Deny Wrongdoing After Toddler Overdoses on Cocaine - From FOX 13 Tampa Bay