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Police: 12-year-old calls 911 after 4 adults overdose on heroin

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A child is being credited for saving the lives of four people who apparently overdosed at a house party in Springfield over the weekend.

The women who apparently overdosed this weekend are expected to be OK, but the story is alarming. A group of three to four children and teens were upstairs, when the overdoses occurred just feet away. A 12-year-old girl found the four women, unconscious, and called 911.

This all took place at 182 Ambrose Street in Springfield, at around 12:30 Sunday morning.

Springfield Police Lt. David Kane told WWLP-TV the four women had apparently overdosed on heroin, after they returned to the house following a night out.

Related: Four women overdosed and kids found them, police said

When police got there, they found two of the four women didn’t have pulses. All four were given the opiate reversal drug Naloxone. They were then taken to Mercy Medical Center and Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. We’re still waiting for an update on their conditions Monday morning.

Police said a group of three to four children and teenagers had been left home alone earlier in the night, and were playing video games upstairs, when the apparent overdoses occurred.

The Department of Children and Families has been notified.  At last check, no criminal charges had been filed.

We called the police this morning to find out whether the children are now in DCF custody, but they couldn’t give us an answer.

Overdoses like this one have continued to increase across the state.  There were at least 1,531 deadly opiate overdoses across the state last year, that number is expected to be even higher this year.

The opiate epidemic has been blamed for several child neglect cases, our neighboring state, New Hampshire. According to the Division for Children, Youth, and Families, heroin was a risk factor in nearly 8 percent of child neglect investigations in that state this year. That’s up from 4.8 percent in 2014.