A parent’s worst nightmare came true Tuesday after a trip to Moscone Park in the Marina, as a 10-month-old suffered a cardiac arrest reportedly after finding fentanyl somewhere in the park, and was saved using Narcan.
Some overdoses in San Francisco’s fentanyl crisis are people who had no intention of using fentanyl — it was simply present in what they thought were other substances. But the latest case is on a whole different level. A parent posted to Nextdoor on Tuesday that his baby had ingested fentanyl at the Marina’s Moscone Park, and the infant suffered a cardiac arrest. SFist has confirmed with the SF Fire Department that an incident matching this description did happen Tuesday, and confirmed with the infant’s father that the 10-month-old did ingest fentanyl and required Narcan.
The Tuesday Nextdoor post by Ivan Matkovic is seen above. “Our baby went to the ER today (11/29/22) and barely survived because he found and ingested fentanyl while playing at Moscone Park (it’s the one next to Marina middle school).”
SFist confirmed with the SFFD that such an incident did take place, but they could not confirm whether fentanyl was involved, nor any other information from the patient care report because of HIPAA privacy regulations.
“On 11-29-22, at 2:56 PM, we responded to Moscone Park for a pediatric patient in cardiac arrest,” San Francisco Fire Department San Francisco Fire Department public information officer Captain Jonathan Baxter said in a statement to SFist. “San Francisco Fire and Paramedics arrived on scene in 2 minutes, provided life-saving measures and revived the patient, who was transported to a local emergency room and is recovering.”
But SFist also contacted the original poster, the infant's father, who identified himself as Matkovic.
“No idea what the substance looked like or how exactly my son was exposed to it,” Matkovic tells us. “Only know it happened in the park while he was playing in the grass.”
The child was reportedly with a nanny at the time, and appeared groggy while playing in the grass and subsequently appeared to have difficulty breathing.
“A toxicology report was done at the hospital after the fact to confirm it was fentanyl,” he adds. “Yes, Narcan saved his life.”
Matkovic later posted that "SFPD and the park police are doing a sweep of the area tonight… they said the likely form factor is a powder (colored to differentiate from cocaine) but no way to be certain exactly… other sign is to lookout for foil especially burnt foil and stay away from it."
This is not entirely unprecedented. Last year, a two-year-old in Concord ingested fentanyl and required Narcan to be revived. And if this is the motivation you may have needed to start carrying Narcan, the San Francisco DPH has a Narcan distribution schedule that shows where and when to get Narcan in San Francisco.
Image via Yelp
