BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Doctors at Adventist Health Bakersfield administered two doses of Narcan to a 9-month-old who suffered a fentanyl overdose in January. The drug and a low level of alcohol were found in his system, reports say.
Gabriela Cruz, the child’s mother, told police she didn’t call 911 when her son turned purple and became unresponsive because she didn’t want to go to jail, according to reports filed in Superior Court that became available Monday.
“Gabriela Cruz wanted to know what was going to happen to her, showing no emotion or concern for her children,” an investigator wrote in the reports.
Cruz, 23 at the time of her arrest, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of felony child cruelty, possession of drugs for sale and misdemeanor drug possession.
On Jan. 21, police were called to an apartment on Lake Street near Beale Avenue to a report of a baby not breathing. An officer said he arrived to find multiple people working on the child, who occasionally gasped for air.
The boy was taken to a hospital. He survived.
Officers found a small plastic baggie in a toilet, the contents of which were turning the water blue, according to the documents. The baggie had a black and white logo of a cartoon skunk on its front.
Cruz told police she found the baggie on the sidewalk outside her home and decided to throw it away. She said she thought it had Percocet inside.
A second baggie was found in Cruz’s bedroom, documents said. Police also found insect poison, pen caps and small candy pieces on the floor — items a baby could choke on. A scale on the kitchen counter was consistent with ones used to weigh drugs, police said.
In the master bedroom closet officers found a baggie containing a small amount of methamphetamine, according to the documents.
Cruz was taken to Bakersfield Police Department headquarters for further questioning.
She told police her son choked on pizza. A detective said fentanyl was found in the child’s system and he wanted the truth.
Cruz then said the boy was playing on the floor with his 2-year-old brother when he fell facedown and his breathing turned raspy. She told police she picked him up and saw his face was purple and his eyes sleepy.
She said she performed CPR and ran to a neighbor’s home to ask for help but no one was home. She called her sister-in-law for help but there was no answer, and she started screaming, according to the documents.
A neighbor who heard her arrived and said an ambulance was on the way.
“I asked her why she didn’t use her cellphone to call for help,” a detective wrote. “After not answering the question honestly, Gabriela Cruz finally said she didn’t call for help using her cellphone because she was scared and she didn’t want to go to jail, and she didn’t want her children taken away.”
Cruz said she didn’t know how the boy came in contact with fentanyl. She told police she is forced to sell Percocet pills by someone in the neighborhood as “a tax” to avoid being harmed or having her property damaged.
She refused to name the person who provides the pills, documents said, and maintained she didn’t know they contained fentanyl.
Cruz is due back in court April 28.
