The parents have been charged with child endangerment.
An Ohio man said he’s received a lot of criticism after posting a photo of two parents possibly overdosing in a parking lot with their child in the car.
Eric Asher, 43, said he rescued the child in Canton after the child’s parents, whom InsideEdition.com has chosen not to name, possibly overdosed while parked in a local lot on Friday.
“We were driving down the road and I looked over to my right and I saw the male and female laying on the ground,” Asher told InsideEdition.com. “We [later] saw that they were purple.”
He said he and his fiancée then noticed a baby in the backseat and quickly removed the child.
“The child was covered in sweat,” Asher said. “We ... gave the baby some water. That was our priority.”
Asher said another bystander called 911.
Asher posted pictures of the incident to Facebook, where they quickly gained traction. He said he and his fiancée have been heavily criticized for sharing the images.
“The only reason we posted that picture was to bring awareness,” Asher said. “I have family and friends dying like everybody does daily over this epidemic. We just wanted people to be aware of what was going on in our community. We did not expect it to go viral.”
Both parents were charged with child endangerment and released on bond, court records show.
Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Asher said the child’s mother later called him and thanked him for saving her daughter.
“They said were clean for two years and then they got off the government [provided] medication and got sick,” Asher said. “When they relapsed, it had a greater effect than when they used to do drugs.”
The child is now in another family member’s custody, Asher said the family told him.
Asher, who is also a father to a toddler, said he's just glad he was in the "right place at the right time."
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