Man sentenced to 4 years after his toddler overdosed on fentanyl pills
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to third-degree assault and unlawful possession of substantial quantities of drugs.
The Washington County District Attorney’s Office said Bret Mitchell Hollmann and his fiancé, Megan Elizabeth Meek, had allegedly smoked fentanyl pills Hollmann purchased on March 13, 2023. Later that day, the couple’s two-year-old daughter had swallowed several fentanyl pills and other paraphernalia that were left in Meek’s bag, within reaching distance of the child.
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The DA’s office said the bag of pills was allegedly left there by Meek in the backseat of the car after returning from making a purchase at an area business. The couple had been on the way to drop the child off at a babysitter so they could go shopping. When Hollmann arrived at his destination, “he and Ms. Meek noticed the child was actively overdosing on fentanyl,” officials said
The child was not breathing, had no detectable pulse and was unconscious by the time Beaverton Police Department officers arrived. Hollmann told the officers his daughter’s stomach needed to be pumped. He and Meek told the officers their daughter swallowed fentanyl pills. Hollmann later admitted to officers he purchased the pills.
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Officers ended up administering two doses of Narcan to the child as a lifesaving measure. Though she responded briefly to the medication, she overdosed again at the hospital “due to the sheer amount of fentanyl in her system,” the DA’s office said. To keep her alive, she was put on a Narcan drip for a full day.
Meanwhile, as Hollmann’s daughter was being treated inside the hospital, he was caught smoking fentanyl outside and was removed from the hospital grounds.
It isn’t clear from the DA’s statement about Hollmann’s sentencing what transpired for him to be charged with third-degree assault.
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In addition to receiving the four-year prison sentence, Hollmann was sentenced to two years of post-prison supervision and drug treatment.
Meek is scheduled for trial in April.
In a statement, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton highlighted the case as “yet one more reason, in a long and growing list of reasons, why lawmakers need to fix Oregon’s drug addiction and decriminalization crisis,” in his view.
“I am hopeful the legislature takes immediate action to fix Measure 110 in a way that will produce results in our communities and save lives,” he said.
Last year, a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association found that recent drug decriminalization laws in Oregon and Washington did not lead to changes in fatal drug overdose rates.
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