[Cite as In re M.C.,
2019-Ohio-771.]
STATE OF OHIO ) IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
)ss: NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
COUNTY OF SUMMIT )
IN RE: M.C. C.A. No. 29191
APPEAL FROM JUDGMENT
ENTERED IN THE
COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
COUNTY OF SUMMIT, OHIO
CASE No. DN 17-12-0993
DECISION AND JOURNAL ENTRY
Dated: March 6, 2019
CARR, Presiding Judge.
{¶1} Appellant, Chrystal S. (“Mother”), appeals from a judgment of the Summit
County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, that adjudicated her minor child abused and
dependent and placed the child in the temporary custody of Summit County Children Service
Board (“CSB”). This Court affirms.
I.
{¶2} Mother is the biological mother of M.C., born October 2, 2014. The child’s father
did not appeal from the trial court’s judgment. M.C.’s adjudication is closely tied to a case
involving another child, D.S., who is not Mother’s child and is not a party to this appeal.
{¶3} CSB filed a complaint, alleging that M.C. was an abused, neglected, and
dependent child because, on September 22, 2017, he had been in the same room with his six-
month-old cousin, D.S., when D.S. somehow ingested and overdosed on a synthetic opioid.
When police and paramedics responded to a report of an infant choking, five adults were in the
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home, but only three of them were downstairs where the children were. Apparently only the
children’s great-grandmother had been in the room with them at the time she noticed that D.S.
became fussy and eventually unresponsive. She could not explain what had happened to D.S.,
but she told the police that she thought that D.S. might have choked on a Life Saver. The police
officer did observe many Life Savers, small toys, and other items scattered on the floor in the
room where the children had been. At the hospital, D.S. was successfully treated with Narcan,
an opioid reversal drug.
{¶4} The matter proceeded to an adjudicatory hearing before a magistrate. The
magistrate’s decision, which was later adopted by the trial court, adjudicated M.C. an abused and
dependent child. Following a dispositional hearing, M.C. was placed in the temporary custody
of CSB. Mother filed written objections to the magistrate’s decisions, which were overruled by
the trial court. Mother appeals and raises one assignment of error.
II.
ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR
THE FINDINGS OF ABUSE AND DEPENDENCY ARE AGAINST THE
MANIFEST WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE.
{¶5} Through her sole assignment of error, Mother asserts that the trial court’s
adjudications of M.C. as an abused and dependent child were not supported by the evidence
presented at the adjudicatory hearing. The trial court found M.C. to be an abused child under
R.C. 2151.031(B), which defines an abused child as an “endangered” child, as defined by the
criminal statute. R.C. 2919.22(A) defines an endangered child to include one whose parent has
“create[d] a substantial risk to the health or safety of the child, by violating a duty of care,
protection, or support.” The court also adjudicated M.C. as a dependent child under R.C.
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2151.04(C), which defines a dependent child as one “[w]hose condition or environment is such
as to warrant the state, in the interests of the child, in assuming the child's guardianship[.]”
{¶6} This Court will review the two adjudications together because the evidence about
what transpired in Mother’s home on September 22, 2017, supported both adjudications. CSB
presented evidence to demonstrate that Mother had created a substantial risk to the safety of then
two-year-old M.C. and that, for that reason, the state was warranted in assuming the child’s
guardianship. See, e.g., In re R.R., 9th Dist. Summit No. 28197, 2016-Ohio-8285, ¶ 6-8
(concluding that evidence of drugs in the home of young children established both abuse under
R.C. 2151.031 and dependency under R.C. 2151.04(C)).
{¶7} Akron Police and paramedics responded to Mother’s home on the afternoon of
September 22, 2017, to a 911 call about an unresponsive infant. Paramedics began artificial
respiration and rushed D.S. to Akron Children’s Hospital. After D.S. and his mother (M.C.’s
aunt) left with the paramedics in an ambulance, police officers and detectives conducted an
investigation by interviewing the remaining adults in the home: Mother, Mother’s boyfriend, the
aunt’s boyfriend, and the great-grandmother of M.C. and D.S.
{¶8} At the adjudicatory hearing, CSB presented evidence about what the adults in the
home had told police. The aunt and her boyfriend had been in the home and were downstairs
after the incident, but it is unclear where they were when D.S. began exhibiting symptoms. One
of the first officers on the scene spoke to the children’s great-grandmother, who was in the room
with both children when the police arrived and said that she had been with them when D.S.
began displaying signs of distress. She explained that D.S. had been fine, became fussy, and
then was unresponsive. She told the officer that she believed that D.S. had choked on a piece of
candy. Based on his experience as a police officer, which had included responding to the scene
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of an infant who had overdosed and died, he believed that D.S. had ingested an opioid. Because
M.C. had been playing in the same room with D.S., he had been exposed to the same danger, so
the police removed him from the home for that reason.
{¶9} The police walked through the home to locate Mother and found her with her
boyfriend in an upstairs bedroom. A detective who later arrived at the scene interviewed
Mother. Mother said that she had been sleeping with her boyfriend during the medical
emergency with D.S. She told the detective that she had not heard the screaming and commotion
while the three adults attempted to revive the unresponsive infant and called 911. In fact, she
said that she was not aware that paramedics had come and taken D.S. to the hospital.
{¶10} The detective, a 26-year veteran member of the Akron Police Department,
testified that he observed track marks on the arms of Mother and her boyfriend, which he
believed were “an indication of IV use of drugs[.]” The detective described the “very
distinctive” appearance of track marks in great detail.
{¶11} The detective explained that he had seen track marks quite often during his
experience with the police department as well as through his part-time job working with
overdose victims at a local hospital. He further testified that the Akron area had been dealing
with “almost an epidemic [of drug use]” during the past six years and that, through his frequent
contact with IV drug users, he was certain that he had observed track marks on the arms of
Mother and her boyfriend. Although Mother admitted to him that she had a prior history of drug
use, she denied any recent use or that there were drugs in the home.
{¶12} CSB also presented the testimony of a doctor from Akron Children’s Hospital,
who explained how she diagnosed and treated D.S. When D.S. arrived at the emergency room,
he was breathing shallowly and was unresponsive. The typical causes of those symptoms in an
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infant are infection, injury, or ingestion. The doctor detailed some of the tests that were
performed to determine the cause of the child’s medical distress. A physical examination of the
child’s body failed to reveal any apparent signs of infection or injury and, because D.S. also had
pinpoint pupils, the doctor suspected that he had ingested an opioid. The doctor further
explained that she had treated other infants who had overdosed on opioids and D.S. exhibited the
same symptoms.
{¶13} Her next step was to treat N.S. with a dose of Narcan. The doctor explained that
Narcan was administered because it would cause no harm to the child and, if D.S. had ingested
an opioid, Narcan would reverse his symptoms within a minute or two. As the doctor had
anticipated, moments after she gave Narcan to D.S., he began kicking, opened his eyes, and
became alert and responsive.
{¶14} A CAT scan, blood work, and other testing of D.S. further ruled out any infection
or injury. The blood tests conducted on D.S. included a coma panel and a test to detect certain
opioids. Although no specific opioid was detected in the child’s blood, the failure to detect a
specific opioid did not rule out an opioid overdose because the test screens for only specific,
known opioids. The doctor explained that the science of drug testing cannot keep up with the
continual development of new synthetically-made opioids. The doctor ultimately concluded that
D.S. had overdosed on a synthetic opioid.
{¶15} Although Mother points to evidence that the great-grandmother was supervising
the children, it is unclear who, if anyone, was watching six-month-old D.S. and two-year-old
M.C. at the time that D.S. was able to ingest an opioid. Moreover, even if an adult had been
watching them, six-month-old D.S. somehow had overdosed on an opioid in the same room
where he had been with two-year-old M.C. and none of the adults in the home had protected the
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children or could explain to the police how that had happened. Throughout that time, Mother
was upstairs sleeping so soundly that she had not even heard or come downstairs to assist the
other adults or her child during D.S.’s medical emergency. She later admitted to the police that
she was concerned for the safety of M.S. because he had been in the same room with D.S. at the
time.
{¶16} The trial court had clear and convincing evidence before it to support its
conclusion that Mother had created a substantial risk to the safety of her young child and that, for
that reason, the state was warranted in assuming M.C.’s guardianship. Mother’s assignment of
error is overruled.
III.
{¶17} Mother’s assignment of error is overruled. The judgment of the Summit County
Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
There were reasonable grounds for this appeal.
We order that a special mandate issue out of this Court, directing the Court of Common
Pleas, County of Summit, State of Ohio, to carry this judgment into execution. A certified copy
of this journal entry shall constitute the mandate, pursuant to App.R. 27.
Immediately upon the filing hereof, this document shall constitute the journal entry of
judgment, and it shall be file stamped by the Clerk of the Court of Appeals at which time the
period for review shall begin to run. App.R. 22(C). The Clerk of the Court of Appeals is
instructed to mail a notice of entry of this judgment to the parties and to make a notation of the
mailing in the docket, pursuant to App.R. 30.
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Costs taxed to Appellant.
DONNA J. CARR
FOR THE COURT
HENSAL, J.
SCHAFER, J.
CONCUR.
APPEARANCES:
ANGELA M. KILLE, Attorney at Law, for Appellant.
SHERRI BEVAN WALSH, Prosecuting Attorney, and JACQUENETTE CORGAN, Assistant
Prosecuting Attorney, for Appellee.
