8-year-old girl gets help as parents overdose outside Niles store
Another couple overdoses in a car with their child in the back seat. This time it happened in Niles.
NILES, Ohio - Another couple overdoses in a car with their child in the back seat.
This time it happened in Niles.
The eight year old girl left her family's car and walked into the Dollar General Market on State Route 422, looking for help after her parents passed out from an apparent drug overdose.
The incident happened just before 8 p.m. Thursday.
Like the East Liverpool case where the grandmother of a four year old was discovered passed out in a vehicle, along with a friend -- there was a "social media" element to the Niles case. It was broadcast live as it was happening on Facebook.
In the Facebook video you can see a van in the background with paramedics and a fire truck nearby.
First responders can be seen working to revive the couple as Mel Brown was at the scene.
The Niles woman knows first hand the impact that drugs can have on a family. Brown's son is battling a heroin addiction and she is raising his young children, "This whole epidemic with these opiates and these people trying to get high and chase that high is real people, and it's happening in our own backyard."
In this case the eight year old girl's parents, 32-year-old Sonya Frantz and 44-year-old Jon Baritell were both given several doses of the overdose reversal drug Narcan to revive them.
Baritell later told police that they both used heroin.
Brown tells 21 News, "We're really facing some issues here in the Valley and other places around the country. So I thought maybe this would be a good thing to stream live on Facebook to give people a different view first hand."
The Niles woman says it's a wake-up call to the entire community that this drug epidemic is not only affecting those who take the drugs, but their children, and the community around them.
"Now with all of these vivid images in front of us we're sort of forced to look at it in a different manner. When a child goes into a store and asks for help saying her parents are passed out and she can't wake them, there's something serious going on," Brown said.
Captain John Marshall with the Niles Police Department says the heroin crisis is beyond the scope of the imagination, " We are at a point now where we are making some slight changes to our dispatch system so that we can better track it. But realistically an overdose a day in not unquestionable for us."
Niles Police also tell 21 News scenes like what happened at the dollar store, and the shocking photos of that couple that overdosed in East Liverpool with a four year old in the van, are tragic cases that are happening far to often.
"It's not uncommon for us to see the same people being revived by Narcan many times, on separate occasions," Captain Marshall said.
Police say they intend to charge the Niles couple with endangering children and drug abuse, and are consulting the prosecutor about whether a felony charge related to the drugs is warranted.
The child is now in the protective custody of Trumbull County Children's Services as police try to sort out what happened. An aunt of the young girl did show up at the scene and talked with CSB.
