A 10-year-old Miami boy had heroin and fentanyl in his system when he died in June, an autopsy released Wednesday confirmed.
The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's report lists Alton Banks' cause of death as acute combined drug toxicity - heroin and fentanyl.
Miami Police believe Banks somehow encountered the drugs during a one-hour period after he left a pool in the Overtown neighborhood and before he got home on June 23. Banks began vomiting at home, lost consciousness and later died at a hospital.
He is the youngest known victim of the opioid crisis in the city, Miami Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes said shortly after his death.
"We don't know how he came in contact with this drug," Llanes said. "We don't have any working theories right now as to how he did that. That's why we need the public's help."
Fire rescue officials say it's unlikely Alton would have overdosed simply by touching fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller long used to treat cancer patients and others suffering chronic pain, usually through a skin patch. They say the drug must be injected, inhaled or ingested to cause a fatal overdose in small amounts, even when the exposure is to a child.
