TUCSON, Ariz. — A middle school student on the Southeast side is facing charges, for giving drugs to three other students at Secrist Middle School. While all three of them are recovering and doing well, it made for a terrifying ordeal.
We talked with one of the girls and her mother, to talk about what happened.
"She's known her since elementary school, and you know, to think that she would do that to her is scary," said Gloria Fernandez, talking about the her daughter, and the girl who got arrested.
For her 12-year-old daughter Olivia Fernandez, that day at school went from bad to worse, when Olivia ate chocolates her friend offered her.
"I did get a call from Olivia in the morning, she said she wasn't feeling well," Gloria explained. "I asked her repeatedly to go to the nurse. She said no, she'd be fine, that she would get some meds from her friend."
Soon after, Olivia's grandmother picked her up early from school, and noticed noticed right away the 6th grader wasn't herself.
"She was talking to things that weren't there," Gloria said. "And at one point, my mom turned around to make her lunch, and she had run out the door into traffic. My mom had to jump in her car and go grab her, and that's when they called me again and said, 'we need to take Olivia to the emergency room because something's wrong.'"
They spent hours in the ER, not knowing what was wrong for a while, before they finally got some answers.
"We did find out that she had been drugged by one of her friends -- I use that term loosely -- with mushrooms and ecstasy."
It was a frightening night for their whole family. Olivia's siblings and parents watched, not knowing knowing if she would be okay, while Olivia herself had to go through test after test, not knowing what was going on.
"It was kind of scary," Olivia said. "Because they kept saying, like, something was wrong with my heart."
Eventually when the hospital realized she was on drugs, they worked with poison control and treated her. But from there, they then sent her to stay at an inpatient center for a week.
"They had said it was toxic delirium with psychosis," Gloria explained. "And now she's in intensive therapy and counseling because they are afraid of the effects it'll have on her brain."
But one major issue for Glorida, is what she says Olivia's school didn't do.
She says contacted them from the hospital, but it was her other daughter who got to the bottom of what was going on.
"So what my oldest daughter did, she is in eighth grade at her school, she was able to find out who did what, who also took it, what was given to her, the amount that was given. She was able to find out all that stuff, and the school couldn't do that," Gloria said.
Speaking with Tucson Police, officers say according to their records, it appears they went to Secrist Middle School because of Gloria's call.
When we reached out to the Tucson Unified School District, asking about the student who was arrested and how the school handled the situation, and the district sent us the following statement:
"Tucson Unified cannot confirm student-related information due to FERPA regulations, we can share that when incidents involving potential substance ingestion are reported, Tucson Unified follows established protocol: we notify School Safety and Tucson Police Department immediately, investigate, seek medical assistance if needed, and we utilize the Code of Conduct in issuing consequences.
We recognize the concerns around the presence of substance-infused products and the potential for accidental ingestion. Tucson Unified is committed to prevention, education, and early intervention through our health curriculum, counseling services, and community partnerships. Ensuring student health and safety is our top priority."
When we asked them to explain the timeline of events, or what "immediately" meant, the district replied "The school responded immediately and followed the code of conduct guidelines including making a report to Tucson Police. Tucson Unified will not be able to provide any additional information."
While Olivia is home now, there's a lot of uncertainty in her future.
"We still don't know the psychological effects it's going to have. Her doctor was afraid of PTSD and things like that," Gloria said. "We don't know if we want to send her to the same school just because of the administration and how they acted."
The student who got arrested is facing charges of endangerment and disorderly conduct. Police say she was booked into juvenile detention, but has been released.
