Florida Mom Overdoses With 3 Kids in Car

A 12-year-old girl in Florida may have saved her mother's life after the woman overdosed on heroin while driving on a highway, police say. "My mom won't wake up and we're on the I-4 in the car," the girl said after calling 911. "We're in the grass and we're close to a ditch," she said in audio released by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office. "I don't know how to put it in park." Paramedics treated 28-year-old Tiffany Smith with naloxone, a nasal spray that reverses the effects of opioid overdoses, NBC reports. Police say two other children—a 7-year-old boy and a 1-year-old boy—were also in the vehicle when they found it on the side of the highway around 7pm on Thursday night.

Police say Smith was unconscious in the vehicle when they arrived, Fox reports. "She told deputies she was on her way to South Carolina with the children when she started to experience back pain," the sheriff's office statement read. "She said she stopped to take some heroin for the pain." When deputies asked Smith whether she should be taking heroin for back pain, she told them she had run out of pain medication. She was hospitalized and police say she will be charged with child neglect. The three children were placed in the care of their grandmother and two dogs found in the vehicle were turned over to animal control officials. (Overdose deaths in the US hit a record high last year.)