The infant son of a California tech boss overdosed on fentanyl he found while crawling around a playground in an upscale San Francisco neighborhood.
The 10-month-old twin, Sena, was playing with his brother at George Moscone Park in the Marina District on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 29, when he began struggling to breathe and turned blue, his nanny Wendy Marroqui said.
Marroqui told wral.com: “I shook him, and I’m like, something’s wrong. I saw his face and he was dizzy. I thought he’s not breathing.”
She said the baby had been crawling in the grass and putting leaves in his mouth like he normally does before suddenly falling ill, so she called 911.
Nanny
Paramedics administered a dose of the anti-opioid medication Narcan — bringing the boy back from the brink of death.
Within seconds, the infant began crying and breathing again, said the child’s dad Ivan Matkovic, 35.
“It’s not just dealers and people you don’t know who are impacted by this, it’s tipping over into the broader populace,” Matkovic told the San Francisco Chronicle after the incident.
“I just wanted to let people know that along with coyotes and RSV and COVID, this is another thing to add to your checklist of things that you’re looking out for [as a parent], because we weren’t,” Matkovic, who founded the tech consulting company Spendgo, said.
Hospital tests later confirmed the child had fentanyl in his system, and he was sent home at around midnight Tuesday.
Matkovic said police told him the boy’s likeliest exposure to the drug was in powder form, which is difficult to detect.