LORAIN, Ohio — A mother is left to wonder how fentanyl got into her two-year-old boy’s system, killing him.
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The Lorain County coroner says it’s the first-ever child fentanyl overdose death they’ve had.
Vanessa Flores’ heart is in pieces.
"That's my only baby, I'm not doing good, no,” Flores said.
Her son, Marcellino, died on July 28, two months before his third birthday.
"They told me it was fentanyl, it was an overdose of fentanyl and I didn't know what to think,” Flores said.
Flores says the last time she saw her son, who she called Nino, was two days before his death when she left him with his father.
"Even onto the porch, he just kept waiving like bye-bye; that's the last time I see him. It's so sad, it's almost like he knew,” Flores said.
Lorain police records show officers went to a home on W. 20th Street for a child not breathing. The report doesn’t say who was caring for the child at the time.
The boy was unresponsive, and an officer scooped him up and ran him outside to an ambulance.
Detectives took over the case.
"Somebody from the house called me and said he's having breathing problems,” Flores said.
Flores said her son was on a breathing treatment, and a week before he had a cold, so the call wasn’t completely out of left field.
She went to the hospital, she said, for a wait that seemed forever.
"One lady said she was like with the coroner, and I just started bursting into tears crying because I know what the coroner means,” Flores said.
Then came the startling news this month from the Lorain County Coroner’s Office about it being a fentanyl overdose. The coroner says it’s really rare, with this case the first-ever in Lorain.
Cuyahoga County had two child fentanyl death cases, one this year and one last year.
“I was just heartbroken; I didn't expect it to be that. I was blaming myself, you know, because he's had a prior history with breathing problems,” Flores said.
The coroner said it’s unclear how the boy got it or if someone gave it to him.
"I don't think we'll find out cause I just don't expect anybody to like just admit something, you know. I don't expect that I feel like I'll never know how,” Flores said.
But Flores says she needs answers.
"I want them to just hold somebody accountable...if it has to be everybody, then yeah. Because there's other children in the house too,” Flores said.
