A 15-month-old Flagler County girl who ingested marijuana her father allegedly left unattended was hospitalized at Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville for Sunday after seizing and developing a distended stomach. Her 26-year-old father, Cody Robert Spiegelhalter, was booked at the Flagler County jail on a felony charge of child neglect.
The incident, investigated by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, took place at Spiegelhalter’s house off State Road 11 southwest of Bunnell. When deputies entered the house, they were struck by the smell of dog feces, walked across an unfinished entryway with concrete floors and screws sticking out of the wood, and noted urine stains. Deputies saw a similar scene of feces and urine in the master bedroom, where the baby’s crib was located. There was no air conditioning.
Deputies found a marijuana “roach”–a burnt-down marijuana joint–on the nightstand and some 20 grams of “a green leafy substance” on top of the dresser, according to Spiegelhalter’s arrest report. “It should be noted that all areas where the suspected narcotics were located are low to the ground and accessible by a child,” the report states. “Further examination of the room yielded a small amount of medicinal mushroom and THC wax in plain view.” Spiegelhalter cried with regret as deputies read him his Miranda rights.
Spiegelhalter had custody of the child last weekend. He’d been forthright with deputies. He told them that Saturday evening around 7:30 p.m. he’d rolled a joint and was hanging out with his daughter when he left the room to use the bathroom. He left his daughter in the room. When he returned, he noticed that half the “blunt” (the word he used with deputies) was gone, and marijuana residue was next to the child. He got nervous. He noticed the child not acting herself. She began to clench both her fists in a way that troubled him.
He panicked. He called the child’s mother, 25-year-old Brittany Emens of Jacksonville, who told him immediately to take the child to the hospital. Spiegelhalter took the child to AdventHealth Palm Coast South, where she began to have seizures and other complications. Medical personnel decided to send the 15-month-old to Wolfson’s.
Spiegelhalter didn’t call authorities. The child’s uncle, a Flagler Beach resident, did after Emens called him, prompting Flagler Beach police to respond, referring the case to Bunnell police on the assumption that Spiegelhalter’s home was in Bunnell. The Sheriff’s Office took over the investigation when the location of the house in unincorporated Flagler County was sorted out.
Toxicology confirmed the presence of marijuana in the child’s urine. The girl had been intubated because of her seizures, had an enlarged stomach, and was expected to remain in the hospital two to three days, Emens told the investigating deputy. She told the deputy that there’d not been any issues with custody previously.
The Sheriff’s Office informed the Department of Children and Families of the case after Spiegelhalter’s arrest. He is being held at the Flagler County jail on $25,000 bond.
In March, the Centers for Disease Control, reported that an analysis of Covid-era data showed a spike in emergency room visits for children who had unintentionally ingested marijuana–at rates that ” far exceeded those preceding the pandemic,” the report states; “these findings are consistent with recent National Poison Data System data demonstrating increases in unintentional ingestions in this age group.” Children’s ingestion of marijuana is invariably tied to their parents’ or guardians’ neglect.
Poisoning from the accidental ingestion of prescription drugs remains a far larger problem than pot ingestion. But overall, the poisoning of children from drugs, a grave, recurring problem before the Poison Prevention Packaging Act in 1970, has plummeted since, and had continued to fall–despite the multiplicity of states legalizing pot–for several years until the Covid-era spike.
AnnualReportonPediatricPoisoningFatalitiesandInjuries_January2022
