Seven young children were taken from this home in Hopewell and hospitalized after apparently ingesting some anti-anxiety medication that was prescribed to the oldest child, who is 7. The photo was taken March 24, 2022. The house is divided into two apartments, and four of the children lived in the downstairs apartment.

Seven young children who were hospitalized Wednesday after they apparently ingested some pills at a Hopewell home are expected to fully recover, authorities said Thursday.

The mother of four of the children told police that her 7-year-old son had shared his anti-anxiety medication with the six younger children, said Lt. Cheyenne Casale of the Hopewell Police Department. The mother got home and found the prescription bottle empty, he said.

The police don’t know exactly what kind of medication the children consumed. “Unfortunately, the label was kind of rubbed off and we couldn’t actually read the label,” Casale said.

No criminal charges had been placed as of Thursday afternoon. Casale said investigators were still interviewing people and trying to determine whether it was a situation of no adult supervision or “poor supervision.”

Wednesday’s incident unfolded at a brick house split into two apartments in the 100 block of South 16th Street. The mother of the four children lived there with her kids and her boyfriend, according to police and a relative of the family. The three other children had been at the home because of a family emergency, Casale said.

The nature of the relationship between the four children who lived in the home and the other three kids remained unclear on Thursday.

The mother of the four children called 911 about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday and reported that the children “weren’t acting right and looked like they were sick,” Casale said. The youngest child was about 2 years old.

Fire and rescue officials arrived at the home and found four children breathing but unresponsive, Casale said. Other children were lethargic.

Fire and rescue officials notified police of the situation, declared it a mass casualty event and summoned rescue units from other jurisdictions, including Fort Lee and Chesterfield County.

Initially, first responders thought the children might have overdosed from opioids, until they used Narcan and it failed to work, Casale said.

Police arrived and detained a few people in the area. “The overdose presents itself as like almost a heroin overdose,” Casale explained. “We were concerned that there might be illicit drugs or illegal narcotics inside the house and they might have been involved in some way.”

“We wanted to make sure we identified everyone who was supposedly present,” he added.

Allen Satterfield, who lives in the other unit inside the house, said in an interview that he had been standing outside when firetrucks first pulled up. He said he saw a woman running toward the home saying something like, “My baby.”

He said he was detained briefly by police but was not charged with anything. He also described seeing a police officer with a young girl who appeared confused and did not appear to know where she was.

Another neighbor, Linzi Black, described seeing three ambulances and as many as nine police cars descend on the street Wednesday afternoon. After police arrived, she said she saw one of the mothers get dropped off nearby from a car and start running toward the house screaming, “Oh my God, oh my God, my kids, my kids.”

Black, 43, said police were in the home until about 1 a.m. and that she did not get to sleep until hours later.

“I was up all night walking through my house praying,” she said, adding that her 9-year-old granddaughter, whom she is raising, was also disturbed by Wednesday’s event.

“The situation is very hard on all of us,” Black said. “It’s even hard on my baby girl because she plays with those kids.”

Black said the father who lives in the home with the four children works as a building contractor and his girlfriend is a stay-at-home mom.

“That’s a good mother and a good father, and they’re always providing for the kids,” she said. “That father works all the time.”

All seven children initially were taken to John Randolph Medical Center, and then five were taken to Chippenham Hospital and two to VCU Medical Center for additional treatment, Casale said.

Initially, at least two of the children were in serious condition, he said.

The mother of four told a detective she had stepped out to go to a nearby convenience store but would not tell the police why she did so, said Casale, adding that some of the other adults also were not forthcoming with information.

The mother, who was not identified by the police, told authorities there were other adults in the home with the children when she left for the store.

Police are conferring with the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and are following up with Child Protective Services.

“We want to make sure these kids end up in a safe environment and they’re taken care of,” Casale said.

A couple of hours before Wednesday’s incident, the grandmother of some of the children had died at a hospital, said Jeffrey Gelina, an uncle of some of the children. As relatives were learning of the death, he said, things got chaotic at the house on 16th Street.

The father who lives at the house was distraught because his mother had died and his girlfriend, the mother of the four children, went with him to the nearby store to make sure he was OK, Gelina said. There were two other adults at the home with the kids, he said.

Gelina said he is trying to contact Child Protective Services.

“I’m contacting my lawyer personally to see what I can do to keep everybody together,” he said.

“My family’s going through a whole lot,” he added. “It’s hard on everybody, and I’m trying to be strong for everybody right now.”

CVS Health has safe medication disposal units at some of its locations.

Virginia is on track for yet another record-breaking number of drug deaths, with the Richmond area at the epicenter, according to data release…

Seven young children were taken from this home in Hopewell and hospitalized after apparently ingesting some anti-anxiety medication that was prescribed to the oldest child, who is 7. The photo was taken March 24, 2022. The house is divided into two apartments, and four of the children lived in the downstairs apartment.

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