Police in an Ohio city shared shocking photos on Facebook.com of a couple unconscious from a heroin overdose while a young boy sat in the backseat of their SUV.
One photo shows Rhonda Pasek, 50, and James Lee Acord, 47, unconscious in an SUV in East Liverpool, near the Ohio/Pennsylvania border.
East Liverpool police officer Kevin Thompson observed a Ford Explorer driving erratically. The SUV with West Virginia plates drifted to an angle in the road and stopped.
The officer approached the car and observed the driver James Acord had “pinpoint pupils” and was mumbling unintelligibly.
Acord told the officer he was taking his passenger Rhonda Pasek to the hospital. When Acord attempted to shift the car back into drive, Officer Thompson reached into the car and switched the engine off, then removed the keys.
At that point the officer noticed the young boy in the back seat, who turned out to be Pasek’s son.
Pasek was unconscious and turning blue from lack of oxygen.
Thompson called for an ambulance. Emergency responders were able to revive both adults with the opiate overdose antidote Narcan.
Pasek and Acord were transported to a local hospital.
According to the NY Daily News, Acord was charged with operating a vehicle while impaired, endangering a child and slowing in a roadway. Pasek was charged with endangering a child, not wearing a seatbelt and public intoxication.
The city responded to public outrage to the photos.
“We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug. We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess,” the city wrote on Facebook.
“This child can’t speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody.”
