Bensalem couple charged after infant ODs on fentanyl
Maria Dolderer and Michael Charles Picardi were arrested Tuesday after their daughter overdosed on Friday.
A Bensalem couple were arrested Tuesday after their 9-month-old daughter overdosed on fentanyl last week, police said.
Maria Dolderer, 24, and Michael Charles Picardi, 28, were each charged with a felony count of endangering the welfare of a child and a misdemeanor count of reckless endangerment, and were being held at the Bucks County Correctional Facility with bail set at $200,000.
Shortly before 10:50 p.m. Friday, police and paramedics responded to a report of an infant in cardiac arrest at the couple’s apartment in the 2000 block of Finch Drive.
The paramedics administered naloxone to the baby and she was eventually taken to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, where she was reported in stable condition. During emergency treatment, the infant needed to be placed on a ventilator and given more naloxone, police said. A naloxone drip was needed because of the high dose of fentanyl in her body.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid.
Police only identified the victim as a 9-month-old child. Dolderer had posted photos on Facebook of an infant she said was her daughter.
In the couple’s apartment, prescription medication bottles were scattered in areas accessible to a child, police said. There was an empty bottle of acetaminophen with codeine in the baby’s swing.
Police said the couple were uncooperative and refused to provide a believable explanation for how the child suffered an overdose.