Autopsy report in Dunwoody student death showed highly toxic levels of Fentanyl

Dunwoody High School student Mia Dieguez, who died on May 6 after suffering a medical emergency while in class, had twice the lethal amount of Fentanyl in her system, according to an autopsy report released by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s office.

Dieguez, 15, was found unresponsive by a teacher around 11:50 p.m. that day after putting her head on a desk during class. She had 4.6 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) of Fentanyl in her system, the report said.

Fentanyl’s potency

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration , “two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage.” The DEA said it has confiscated pills that have contained ranging from .02 to 5.1 milligrams.

Dieguez also had caffeine, Delta 9-THC, and Naloxone, commonly known as Narcan, in her system. The Narcan was administered by emergency personnel en route to by ambulance to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.

According to the report, Dieguez was pronounced dead at 1:38 p.m. at the hospital after “advanced cardiac life support” had been administered.

“Further information disclosed that a minor individual had confessed to giving the decedent oxycontin with a possibly high concentration of THC mixed with the pill, with school administrators in possession of the substance, conveying that they believed the substance contained Fentanyl,” the report said.

Police arrested an unidentified minor, also a Dunwoody High School student, and charged them with involuntary manslaughter.

DeKalb Deputy Chief Investigator Jess Dillard said Dieguez was an otherwise healthy person and that the cause of her death could only be attributed to a drug overdose. However the document, while reporting the cause of death as acute Fentanyl intoxication, recorded the manner of death as “undetermined.”

What the GBI says

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Division of Forensic Sciences, there are five determinations for manner of death: homicide, natural, accidental, suicide and undetermined.

“We don’t get into the criminal aspect of the investigation,” Dillard said. “Since we don’t know the circumstances as to why and how [the Fentanyl] was ingested, either as an accidental death, a suicide or a homicide, we place the manner of death as undetermined.”

The report indicated that an organ procurement organization harvested bone and skin tissue from Dieguez at some point prior to the autopsy.

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