Phoenix mother arrested after infant son ingested deadly dose of fentanyl

According to court records, first responders and medical staff had to use three doses of Narcan on the toddler after he ingested lethal doses of fentanyl. AZ Family reports that Chavez allegedly gave the child CPR until paramedics arrived after which he was rushed to Banner Thunderbird Medical Center where he was given a third dose of Narcan. Subsequent tests revealed the boy had fentanyl in his system, police confirmed.

After police searched the home, they found eight M30 pills and about $10,000 in cash. While being interviewed by police, the 23-year-old mother told officers that she cleans the home and that there is no way fentanyl could have been on the property, adding she gave her son a bottle in the morning and another in the afternoon and he was breathing normally.

Chavez was arrested and charged with child abuse. Her bond is currently set at $2,500.

Drug related deaths are at an all-time high in the United States and first the first time in a decade, overdose deaths among young people rose in 2020 and continued to rise through 2021, according to a report published in JAMA.

"This is very alarming because what we've seen in other parts of the population is that when overdose death rates start to rise, they tend to continue to do so for quite some time," said Joe Friedman, the study’s author and a public health expert at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Friedman and his team found that fatal drug overdoses among young people nearly doubled from 492 in 2019 to 954 in 2020, an increase of 94%. The highest death rates were among Native American and Alaskan Native teens, followed by Latino teens.

"For decades, we've seen overdose rates rising among adults, and teens have been insulated from that," Friedman said. "And now, for the first time, the overdose crisis is reaching teens as well."