CENTER TWP — A couple and their friend are accused of failing to seek immediate medical help when a 5-week-old girl nearly died after accidentally ingesting a potent morphine-like painkiller placed in a baby formula container.

Even as the baby labored to breathe the trio went shopping and stopped for fast food, according to state police.

The child’s parents, Wesley A.D. Smith, 32, and Dawn M. Byers, 27, both of Mercer, and Candise S. Morrison, 31, of Grove City waited for more than two hours before calling 911.

Police this week charged the trio with child endangerment and reckless endangerment, both misdemeanors.

The investigation began last May when police learned that Smith’s and Byers’ daughter, Presleigh, had ingested oxycodone, an opium derivative. The finding followed a toxicology screening at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh.

“The oxycodone ingested caused a life threatening event,” according to court documents.

Presleigh contracted aspiration pneumonia during the ordeal and had to be treated at the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit.

Police suspect a traffic stop May 25 in Mercer County set off the series of events that ended with the baby fighting for her life.

After Morrison was stopped for speeding, Byers, who was in the car, handed her friend oxycodone pills and asked her to hide them, fearing police would search the vehicle, according to documents. Smith was not in the car then.

Byers also knew she was wanted on a warrant.

Morrison admitted that she placed the pills in a baby formula can, police said.

Byers was arrested on the warrant and placed in the Mercer County Jail.

Morrison later met with Smith at her then home in Center Township and told him what happened at the traffic stop, documents said.

The two went through baby formula cans and believed they threw away the one with the pills in it. But they apparently discarded the wrong one, police said.

On May 29, Byers got out of jail and later that day unknowingly prepared a bottle for Presleigh from the tainted formula can. The baby was fed about 3 p.m.

Byers and Smith at 5:30 p.m. drove to Morrison’s home. When they arrived, police said, Presleigh was sleeping in a car seat.

An hour or so later, the baby started “breathing funny and was arching her back” Byers told police.

Smith and Morrison also were aware of the child’s symptoms that apparently continued to worsen.

Nonetheless, they stopped at Walmart in Butler Township and then went to a nearby Taco Bell before taking the baby to the hospital, police said.

While at the fast food restaurant, Presleigh stopped breathing and turned blue. The defendants at that point called 911.

Police later recovered a small amount of the tainted baby formula and had it tested. Toxicology reports revealed the presence of oxycodone.