10-month-old boy survives fentanyl overdose at San Francisco playground

A 10-month-old boy accidentally ingested fentanyl at a San Francisco playground Tuesday and was saved only when paramedics gave him the overdose-reversing medication Narcan, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The child’s father gave the newspaper a gut-wrenching account of the ordeal.

“I’m frankly ignorant to the fentanyl problem,” Ivan Matkovic said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I’m just a dad that something bad happened to. I just wanted to let people know that along with coyotes and RSV and COVID, this is another thing to add to your checklist of things that you’re looking out for because we weren’t.”

The child was at a playground in the city’s Marina District with his nanny. He was playing in a grassy area with leaves, where it is believed he came across the drug, ingested it, and went into cardiac arrest. He was treated at a hospital for more than six hours, where testing confirmed the drug was in his system, the newspaper reported.