Trial against parents

Toddler found heroin in apartment and swallowed it

The father confesses in Vienna that he had heroin at home. The mother had no idea.

(Bild: AR, Krone KREATIV)

An almost two-year-old girl was taken to hospital in Vienna with severe heroin poisoning. The courageous doctors were able to save the toddler's life. On Wednesday, the parents will have to answer to the judge. Their little daughter probably found the drugs at home and put them in her mouth: Acquittals!

"It's the worst thing that's happened in my life," the defendant claims in Vienna's regional court. Together with his wife, an academic from Hungary, he has to answer for a disturbing incident in Vienna on January 21, 2024. The family was busy moving into a new apartment on that day. Their daughter, who was just under two years old at the time, was still awake in the morning, but about ten minutes after she snuggled up to her sleeping dad on the mattress, the toddler's demeanor changed: While she was eating breakfast with her mom, she appeared sleepy, her head tilted forward. The 42-year-old alerted her husband: "We noticed that the child was in a bad way and called the ambulance immediately," recalls the defendant. 

Her life was in danger
"If you hadn't called the doctor, the child would probably no longer be there," the judge confronted him with how dangerous the situation was for the girl. Because it became clear in hospital that the daughter had eaten a pinch of heroin, which she had apparently found in the apartment. According to the medical expert, the girl was already in a "deeply comatose state" in hospital. Only an antidote prevented the child, who weighed around nine kilograms at the time, from going into respiratory arrest. 

Bag of heroin hidden in her pants
"I'm guilty", the father admits that he brought heroin home that evening in a bag in the watch pocket of his trousers: "I had been clean for a very long time and had only started sniffing heroin again a few months earlier", says the man with two previous convictions. "In the morning, the bag was still in my pants. But maybe a piece fell off." He could not explain how the toddler got hold of the addictive drug - through contamination from outside.

His co-defendant wife pleads "not guilty". She claims to have been unaware of her husband's drug addiction: "I didn't know anything. Drugs weren't an issue with us. If I had known, I would never have left the little girl alone in his care."

According to the forensic expert, the apartment was contaminated with heroin, cocaine, ketamine and methamphetamine in invisible but detectable quantities. Heroin, cocaine, nicotine and methamphetamine were also found in minimal quantities in the little girl's hair. 

Surprising acquittal despite confession
The judge acquitted the mother as expected. What is surprising, however, is the acquittal of the father, who confessed. Ms. Rat justified this as follows: "They were in a relocation situation. There were also other people in the apartment. Friends helped. I cannot determine with any degree of certainty whether it was her heroin and whether they stored it incorrectly. Especially as her package was still in her pants in the morning."  

The parents are now separated and the mother, who has been extensively investigated by the welfare authorities, is to be granted sole custody of her daughter. Judgments pending.