Toddler Overdoses On Cocaine, Parents Face Charges: Sheriff

VENICE, FL — After a 21-month-old toddler overdosed on cocaine in January, a Venice couple was arrested Saturday and faces charges of child neglect, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

The sheriff’s office and the Sarasota County Fire Department were called to the Park Road home of Blake Pavey and Kaitlyn Van Dorn Jan. 8 just before 5 p.m. on a medical call involving their unconscious child, who wasn’t breathing.

Van Dorn, 33, told deputies that the toddler picked up an unknown object from the ground and put it in his mouth while they were on a neighborhood walk, the sheriff’s office said. The child began stumbling and became limp before losing consciousness.

Emergency medical responders administered three doses of Naloxone, the medication designed to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, which caused the child to quickly regain consciousness and become alert, the sheriff’s office said. The toddler was taken to the hospital for additional testing and treatment.

Van Dorn told deputies that the child was picking up rocks around the neighborhood using a teal bucket. She said the child may have picked up a needle cap along the route that she swatted out of his mouth, the sheriff’s office said.

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Investigators searched the neighborhood and were unable to locate the drug paraphernalia or bucket. When the deputies returned to the home, Van Dorn found the teal bucket behind a closed door and gave it to deputies. Inside the bucket was a silver spoon and tissue, both items consistent with the ingestion of narcotics, the sheriff’s office said.

Pavey, 34, who is Van Dorn’s partner, told deputies he didn’t join her on the walk, but supported her story that the child must have ingested something in the neighborhood.

Sheriff’s office detectives launched an investigation in collaboration with the Department of Children and Families. After several months of trying to obtain hospital medical records related to the child’s toxicity levels, detectives confirmed the child overdosed on cocaine, the sheriff’s office said.

The toddler has not been in the care of either Pavey or Van Dorn since January.

Warrants were issued for their arrests and on Saturday, both Van Dorn and Pavey were taken into custody. Pavey was released on a $15,000 bond while Van Dorn remains in custody without bond related to a violation of probation charge, the sheriff’s office said.