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Girl, 8, Helps Save Mother's Life After Heroin Overdose

MORNINGSIDE (KDKA) - An 8-year-old girl is being credited with helping to save her mother's life in Morningside.

Police were called to the intersection of Greenwood Street and Swan Way around 6 p.m. on Thursday.

"That little girl saved her life. The police told us she would have died. The little girl saved her life," Dave Gerasole said.

Gerasole was still pretty shaken while talking about what happened to one of his neighbors.

Jamie Hudak, 32, apparently overdosed on heroin and it was her 8-year-old daughter who went for help at the Shear Sensations hair salon.

Gerasole said he goes to the neighborhood beauty shop almost every day with his dog to visit.

"She came running in, she's crying. She said, 'I don't want my mom to die,'" he said.

Hudak was found sitting in a running car in the driver's seat in an alley behind the salon.

"She was gray, her eyes are kind of closed and it looked like she was dead. We started shaking her," Gerasole said.

When police arrived, Hudak was in the rear of her vehicle fumbling with a makeup bag, which contained a hypodermic needle, cotton swabs and multiple empty stamp bags. On the ground near the car, they found a hypodermic needle and a spoon.

According to the criminal complaint, Hudak told police she is a heroin user and had just used with a friend, Timothy Antoszewski.

He was found dead inside his house on Greenwood Street from an apparent heroin overdose.

All of this happened within an hour.

Hudak's daughter said she had been with her mom and Antoszewski and they had recently dropped him off at his home before going to a nearby Rite Aid.

Meanwhile, Gerasole said he knows the Hudak family and he ran up the street to get her husband.

"He said she just came out of rehab and said, 'I can't keep doing this. I [have] two kids.' He's a nice man," Gerasole said.

Hudak has been charged with child endangering and prohibited acts. She is currently being held in the Allegheny County Jail on $5,000 straight bond.

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