The opioid crisis is a hot topic of conversation as Americans share pleas for help in solving the problem to various government entities — federal, state and local.
A recent instance of how this is affecting everyday Americans drives home the severity of the crisis after a 9-year-old boy fell on a discarded needle in a local park outside Boston, Massachusetts.
The elementary school-aged boy fell and tripped during football practice at a local park, and was jabbed with a drug needle that was lying on the field.
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Boston Bengals Pop Warner coach Domingos Darosa joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" to discuss the instance and the opioid issue in the area.
"We’ve been dealing with this for a little over a decade," he said.
"We have an opioid crisis like every city across the United States."
Darosa said it was a normal football practice that day when he sent the kids to take a lap to warm up.
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Shortly after the kids started out, some team members called his attention to the field.
One of the boys had fallen, landed on a needle — and was panicking.
After calming the boy down, the coach called the boy’s mom and summoned an EMT to help transport the child to a medical facility.
Darosa described the area of town as rough, saying this has been an ongoing issue for years.
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"This is every day. This is 365 days a year. We as a community can’t take anymore," said Darosa.
The coach said the incident had an impact on members of the football team.
Some of the kids have chosen to quit.
Darosa also shared another example of a troubling incident in the area.
A video showed a naked homeless man in the bleachers at a nearby softball field during a girls’ softball practice.
The coach spotted the man and was shown asking him to leave.
Darosa said the community has pleaded for help from the city.
"We’ve been asking the city to have ongoing maintenance and also police presence, to ensure that the young people who use this park and [the] community itself [don't] have to be the nameless victims of what’s going on around the city."
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With an elementary school just 100 feet from the practice fields, Darosa said the issue needs to be addressed.
