WASHINGTON — The parents of a 4-year-old-boy have been charged after doctors discovered drugs in his body after he was rushed to a local hospital.
Authorities say the child became ill around 12 p.m. July 16, and was taken to the Stafford Hospital emergency room after suffering seizures.
At the hospital, doctors discovered the boy’s bloodstream contained both opiates and THC, a chemical found in marijuana. Hospital staff called the sheriff’s department to report the case.
The boy’s parents, Christopher Marcel Hilliard and Olivia Racquel Hernandez, both 23, have been charged with felony child neglect.
Hilliard and Hernandez told investigators their son had been staying with relatives, and when they went to visit him, he began having seizures. Hilliard was convicted of a drug charge last year.
A spokesman for the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office says the couple took their son to the hospital, but the father had left by the time police arrived. He turned himself in to police earlier this week. The mother was then sought by police and then was in custody by Friday evening.
The child was later transferred to another hospital but has since been released and is doing well.
