Eddington woman charged after 9-month-old revived with Narcan appears in court

BANGOR, Maine (WABI) - A member of the RSU 63 school board charged in connection with an apparent infant drug overdose made her first court appearance Wednesday afternoon.

Brittany Wood, 36, of Eddington appeared virtually in a Bangor courtroom. Brewer police arrested Wood around 7 p.m. Tuesday as she was leaving a residence there as a passenger in a pickup truck.

Arrest warrant and search

According to court documents, the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office was granted an arrest warrant on July 2, which is when the search for Wood began.

District Attorney Chris Almy said it was a reasonable inference that Wood had been attempting to avoid capture.

“It’s a fair inference that she was trying to avoid capture... Her conduct included going to Boston, going to Times Square in New York, renting a car, and whatnot,” Almy said.

Wood’s attorney, Brittanie Thomas, disputed that characterization.

“Ms. Wood was on vacation at the time that she was even alerted that there was a warrant. When she saw the article online, she came back to Maine. They reached out to the police department, and she was going to surrender, but the police pulled her over before she could make it to the actual police station,” Thomas said.

Wood said she did not know about the warrant until reading a news article about herself more than a week after it was issued.

Infant overdose

The charges stem from the apparent drug overdose of Wood’s then nine-month-old daughter on May 31. Court documents allege Wood called 911 around 2:30 p.m. that day to report her daughter had stopped breathing. Wood and her husband, who is not being charged in the case, said they believed the baby was choking on something.

Within four minutes of the 911 call, a first responder determined the child needed Narcan, a medication used to reverse opioid overdose.

“But for the conduct of a deputy sheriff who happened to be in the area when this call came in, the child in this case may very well have died. So, he went to the scene, as the affidavit indicates, and realized that the baby was in distress. In fact, I think it was apparent that wasn’t breathing or acting alive. And he listened to what was provided to him by the parents of the child. And what he was given from information did not jive with what he was seeing. So, he took it upon himself to administer some Narcan to the young child. And as a result, the child was revived,” Almy said.

Almy said a urine sample Wood provided while unobserved came back negative, but a blood draw performed by a nurse tested positive for a number of drugs, including fentanyl and cocaine. He said those substances were also present in the child’s system.

School board seat

Wood is being held on $50,000 cash bail and is due back in court later this month. She works as a paralegal and will be temporarily represented by her boss, David Walker.

Town Manager Shawna Hinkley said there is no recall process for RSU 63 school board members. However, under an absenteeism policy, a member who misses three consecutive meetings is removed from the board. Hinkley said Wood has missed the last two meetings.

The next board meeting is scheduled for August. If Wood misses that meeting, her seat becomes vacant until the town appoints someone to serve the remainder of her term, which ends next June.