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Emergency crews were called to a Lake Grove home on Colmar Avenue on Saturday, Jan. 13 after getting a 911 call reporting an unresponsive 11-month-old boy.
By the time they arrived, the child had turned blue, his eyes were rolled back in his head, and he was struggling to breathe, prosecutors said. He was loaded into an ambulance but stopped breathing on the drive to Stony Brook University Hospital.
Medics then made the decision to pull over so a Suffolk County Police medic could board the ambulance and administer the child Narcan, which is used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
Five minutes later, an officer-worn body camera captured the moment the infant suddenly began breathing on his own and crying. In all, he had been unresponsive for nearly 40 minutes.
Once at the hospital, doctors determined that the boy had suffered acute fentanyl poisoning, hypoxia, and respiratory failure. They administered additional doses of Narcan and later placed him on a Narcan drip to prevent further respiratory failure.
“It is heartbreaking to see a defenseless and innocent child become yet another casualty of a deadly illegal drug,” said Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney. “What is more outrageous is that the child’s father is alleged to have placed his own son in close proximity to such poison.”
Suffolk County Police arrested the boy’s father on the same day. The 35-year-old, who prosecutors are not naming in order to protect the child’s identity, reportedly had numerous drugs inside his Lake Grove home including cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl.
He was charged with assault, criminal possession of a controlled substance, and endangering the welfare of a child.
Police also arrested the father’s alleged drug dealer, 39-year-old Robert Mauro, of Miller Place, after reportedly uncovering cell phone data linking the two.
According to prosecutors, Mauro provided the child’s father with fentanyl just weeks before selling the drug to a 31-year-old Patchogue woman who died from an overdose.
In a text exchange with the woman, he allegedly told her he was selling her a “non-fenty” mix, meaning drugs without any fentanyl. However, an autopsy found that she had died from a mixed drug intoxication from six different drugs, four of which were types of fentanyl.
Mauro was arrested on Tuesday, Feb. 20 after a search of his Miller Place home. As police were executing a search warrant, he attempted to destroy evidence by throwing a digital scale and fentanyl out of his bedroom window, police said.
Prosecutors charged him with ten criminal counts, including second-degree manslaughter and tampering with evidence.
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