NEWS

Police: Parents overdosed in car with child present

Elizabeth Murray
Free Press Staff Writer

©2016 Burlington Free Press

Charges are pending against two people after a 5-year-old boy yelled for help when his parents fell into semi-consciousness from using heroin in a Burlington parking lot this week, city police say.

A child is carried toward a Burlington fire truck near Pearl Street Beverage in the city on Tuesday after police say two people ingested heroin with their child in the car.

The parents — Adam Legrand, 41, and Hannah Smith, 37, both of Franklin — were cited to appear Thursday in Vermont Superior Court in Burlington. They are expected to be charged with one count of cruelty to a child under 10 years old, police Lt. Shawn Burke said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday evening in Burlington. Police were called to the downtown parking lot of Pearl Street Beverage and Lakeside Pharmacy for the report of two people in a semi-conscious state in a car with a child in the back seat "screaming for help," Burke said.

"There was a patron in the parking lot who heard a child calling for help, and then some people came out of the pharmacy, and the child said, 'My mommy and daddy aren't waking up,'" Burke said.

Police and Burlington Fire and Rescue responded to the scene, and rescue personnel attended to Smith and Legrand. Burke said Legrand was more conscious than Smith, and both eventually were taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center. Once at the hospital, both were treated with Narcan, a drug used to treat and reverse the effects of opiate overdoses, he said.

VT parents answer charges of heroin use with child

Burke said Smith and Legrand each ingested one dose of heroin in the parking lot. Police are unsure whether the two were in the early stages of an overdose or if they were just high, but Burke said both responded well to Narcan treatment.

Attempts to reach Smith and Legrand through social media were unsuccessful Wednesday. A phone number for them could not be located. Burke said he didn't know whether either suspect had a lawyer.

Police have referred the case to the state Department for Children and Families. A relative took custody of the child after rescue workers took his parents to the hospital, Burke said.

Burke said incidents like Tuesday's happen "behind closed doors" frequently.

"What we see is a couple travel from Franklin County down to Burlington clearly in search of a drug, and then so desperate to ingest that drug that they're just pulling off in a very high-profile parking lot and ingesting it with their child as a witness," Burke said. "It just speaks to the whole concept that there are no social properties behind this drug ... and these people are feeding their addictions at all costs."

This story was first posted online on July 6, 2016, and updated on July 7. Contact Elizabeth Murray at 651-4835 or emurray@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizMurraySMC.

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