Woman in Labor Had Friend Inject Her With Heroin, Police Say

Felicia Farruggia. (Photo credit: Concord, NH Police)

A Concord, N.H. woman was recently arrested for an unthinkable act. Felicia Farruggia, 29, went into labor, but before emergency responders arrived to help, she demanded that her friend, Rhianna Frenette, inject her with heroin and methamphetamines. She ended up giving birth while entering the ambulance that arrived.

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According to ABC News,

Farruggia said she started having contractions, went to the bathroom and lay on the floor. She asked Frenette to come in, as she was screaming and crying and said, “I can’t do this,” referring to the labor pain. She said Frenette had heroin and told her “it would take the edge off.” She said she didn’t stop Frenette from injecting her.

But Frenette told police that when she went into the bathroom, she saw Farruggia trying to inject herself, essentially “mutilating herself with the needle,” which broke. Frenette said she took a used needle provided by someone else and “shot out probably more than half” of the substance inside it before injecting the rest into Farruggia. She said the ambulance was called after that.

Frenette told police she acknowledged that what she did was wrong, but believed that Farruggia would have injected herself with more of the drug, believed to be heroin, if she hadn’t intervened. Frenette also said she herself was likely high on methamphetamine.

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Farruggia’s baby, who is now six months old and in protective custody, was born in stable condition but was experiencing rapid breathing while in the hospital. His urine tested positive for methamphetamine and amphetamines. His mother, who was arraigned from jail on Wednesday, and whose bail was set at $15,000, also tested positive for those drugs, as well as benzodiazepine. Bail for Frenette, who injected the drug into Farruggia using an unsanitary needle, was set at $25,000.

Both women have criminal records; Farruggia also has been involved in “guardianship of a minor” cases, an individual parenting petition and a custody petition, going back to 2005.

 

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