Wichita dad sentenced for endangering baby son who ingested drug found on floor
The father of a Wichita baby who tested positive for fentanyl after swallowing a pill he found on the floor was sentenced Thursday to one year of probation on one count of aggravated child endangerment.
Wichita police have said the 1-year-old became unresponsive on April 28, 2022, after he “ingested a pill that had fallen on the floor” of a home in the 2000 block of North Market, prompting a 911 call and trip to the hospital, where he was treated with naloxone. The boy was also given a dose of the medicine, which can reverse an opioid overdose, by emergency medical services staff, according to an affidavit released by a Sedgwick County District Court judge.
The overdose was not fatal. But the case led Wichita police to issue a warning to parents to keep medications stored in childproof bottles out of reach and to dispose of any unwanted or unneeded. At the time of the warning, police said they did not know the contents of the pill.
The Eagle is not naming the father to protect his son’s identity.
Wesley Medical Center found fentanyl in the boy’s system; one witness told authorities the father had “a pill addiction, and has since he was younger,” the affidavit says. According to the document, a witness arrived home from work to find the boy on the couch with his father, playing, drinking from a bottle and coughing from a recent illness.
Once, when the boy coughed and choked, the father “placed him over a trash can like he may vomit.” But the boy started crying. He then “began playing again and running around like he was hyper,” the affidavit says.
Eventually, the child stopped running and looked disoriented. His eyes “began rolling back into his head and he was ‘fading in and out,’” according to the affidavit.
When pats to his back didn’t wake the boy, his caregivers called 911 and administered CPR until paramedics arrived, the affidavit says.
Prosecutors charged the father in November with one count of aggravated endangering a child, alleging he had caused his son “to be placed in a situation in which the child’s life, body or health is endangered.”
The father, 32, changed his plea in the case from not guilty to guilty on April 14, court records show. His plea agreement said if probation was ordered, prosecutors would ask that the father complete a drug and alcohol evaluation, undergo treatment and not have unsupervised contact with his son.
The father’s sentence carries an underlying prison term of 13 months, said Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Dan Dillon — which he could be ordered to serve if he doesn’t follow the conditions of his probation.
Sedgwick County District Judge Tyler Roush handed down the sentence, Dillon said.
