Parents overdosing with their kids in the car is the ‘new norm,’ police say
It’s a narrative that has become all too familiar.
Police found Erika Hurt, 25, unconscious in the driver’s seat of a hot car Saturday afternoon in Indiana, according to the IndyStar. Her head was tilted back and her mouth was open. A needle hung from her hand. Her 10-month-old son was crying in the backseat.
It’s reminiscent of the first case that received national attention – though hardly the first case to actually occur. Police in Ohio shared a photo of a woman and her friend who had overdosed on heroin passed out in the front seat of a vehicle, with a 4-year-old boy sitting in the backseat.
Police at the time said they knew some people would be offended by the photo, but they hoped “the non-drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis.”
The town marshal in Hope, Indiana said this is the “new norm,” and he knows why.
“Parents are doing this more often with children in the car because they are doing it away from someone who is going to disapprove,” Matthew Tallent told the IndyStar.
Brian Allen, public safety director for East Liverpool, the Ohio city where the original man and woman overdosed, said overdosing in cars means they’re more likely to survive.
“If they overdose in their home, the odds of them dying is much greater,” Allen told the Washington Post. “No one can see them, and no one can get to them.”
There have been numerous cases between the first photo and Hurt’s case, some receiving more national attention than others. Police say they are sharing the photos to bring the issue to the public’s attention, in hopes it will change this norm.
Brenden Clark, a recovering drug addict himself, tried to create some of that change. The mother of his 8-year-old son died of a drug overdose on Oct. 9, and had someone record him telling the boy that his mother was dead. In the heart-wrenching clip, the boy asked “how?” and started crying uncontrollably.
“This is the realization and reality of our disease. Don’t let this disease have to make someone tell your child that your (sic) dead because of drugs,” Clark wrote on Facebook, clarifying the video was not staged. “This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
About 78 people die as a result of the opioid epidemic in the U.S. each day, according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention. The Indiana mother was one who survived.
Hurt’s son is now with his grandmother, and Hurt was arrested after she was released from the hospital and charged with child neglect, violation of probation and possession of drug paraphernalia.
This story was originally published October 27, 2016 at 7:05 AM with the headline "Parents overdosing with their kids in the car is the ‘new norm,’ police say."