Jason Bolden and Brandy Estep, a Portsmouth, Ohio couple have been arrested after their toddler daughter, Alonna Bolden, heroin overdosed on their stash.
Jason Bolden, 41 and Brandy Estep, 26, a Portsmouth, Ohio couple have been arrested after their 18 month old toddler girl, Alonna Bolden passed out following a suspected heroin overdose.
Matters came to the fore after a ‘frantic’ good Samaritan approached a Portsmouth police officer just after midnight Tuesday night seeking help for the baby girl who was in distress at her parent’s home.
Told neighbor, Laura Royal via WSAZ: ‘When I actually looked back at the baby, she was blue’.
Upon arriving at the home, the officer observed the child’s father, Jason Bolden in the process of rushing his daughter to hospital.
Doctors said he toddler was unconscious and had difficulty breathing.
The neighbor said Bolden was walking around, refusing initially to take the toddler to hospital, saying if he did he would go to jail.
‘He kept on saying it was her sugar,’ Royal said. ‘He knew.’
But it gets better.
The officer was then told that the child’s mother, Brandy Estep, may have been overdosing as well. The officer found her unresponsive in her home, and she was also transported to the emergency room at Southern Ohio Medical Center.
According to fox28 when Royal first arrived at the family home, both parents were passed out on the kitchen floor.
Bolden quickly awoke and complained that he couldn’t find $175 worth of heroin. It was only after repeated overtures from Royal that the Bolden eventually agreed to take the child to hospital, with medics now saying the woman likely saved Alonna’s life.
Police now believe that Alonna may have accidentally gotten her hands on her parents heroin stash and ingested some of the content.
Come Wednesday the baby was in serious but guarded condition, with hopes the girl might be released Thursday.
While toxicology tests have yet to provide a cause for the child’s condition, both mother and daughter were revived by Narcan. Narcan blocks the effects of opioids.
‘It tears my heart out because I watched her mom grow up,’ told Royal who at one point used to babysit the toddler’s mother. ‘To know something like that could happen, I can’t even think about it. It’s just crazy.’
Adding: ‘On a clean, sober day, you couldn’t ask for a better mother,’
‘But on getting high days, she’s one of the worst. And if she’s going to continue to get high, she doesn’t deserve her kids.’
Of note, following her arrest, Estep told police that Bolden had been bringing drugs into their home after having left rehab. She told police she had used heroin at a friend’s home before ‘somehow’ managing to arrive home later that evening.
Jason Bolden and Brady Estep have since been charged with child endangerment and could be sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison and fined $10,000.
Alonna will likely be released to child services upon her eventual release from hospital….
