Three babies overdosed — one fatally — on fentanyl left unsecured inside three Everett homes in less than one week, the city’s Fire and Police departments said Thursday.
Everett police did not release detailed information about the overdoses — including whether any parents have been arrested or charged with a crime — because of active investigations. Investigators don’t believe the overdoses are connected, the Everett Police Department said in a statement.
The three incidents, as reported by police:
- Shortly before 8 a.m. Saturday, April 20, someone called 911 after finding an 11-month-old baby unresponsive inside a home on East Marine View Drive in Everett’s Delta neighborhood. The baby was given naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug, before firefighters arrived. The baby was released after being treated at a hospital, the city’s Fire and Police departments said in the statement.
- Four days later, on Wednesday, someone called 911 shortly before noon after finding a 6-month-old struggling to breathe at an apartment building on Broadway in the Port Gardner neighborhood. Firefighters gave the baby a dose of naloxone after finding them unresponsive. That child is in stable condition at Seattle Children’s hospital, fire and police officials said.
- Firefighters responded less than three hours after that when a person called 911 to report finding a 13-month-old baby who wasn’t breathing at an apartment off West Casino Road in the Westmont neighborhood. The baby was taken to Providence Regional Medical Center but died, officials said.
Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid up to 50 times as potent as heroin, has fueled a skyrocketing number of overdose deaths in Washington and across the country. A record 1,082 people fatally overdosed on fentanyl in Washington last year — a 51% increase over record-setting 2022.
And overdose deaths among children are rapidly multiplying. Washington saw 38 children under 18 die from an opioid-related overdose in 2022 — more than three times as many as in 2019. All but one were tied to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to state Department of Health data.
Children are especially vulnerable to overdosing, as ingesting even small amounts of the opioid’s residue can be fatal due to their body size and lack of tolerance to the drug. The drug, which is often sold as a small, brightly colored blue pill, can look like candy to babies and children.
Information from The Seattle Times archive was included in this report.