EAST BUTLER — A Butler County mother says she accepts responsibility for her predicament: charged with overdosing on heroin while caring for her three young children.

Her children, ages 6, 8 and 9, remain under her parents’ care.

She’s embarrassed and remorseful.

But Erin Anne Lazor, 33, of Jefferson Township is not giving up.

“The disease of addiction is sickening,” Lazor said when contacted Thursday afternoon about the criminal case state police filed against her last week.

“It not only destroys the lives of people struggling with the disease,” she said, “it destroys the lives of loved ones around them.”

Lazor faces a hearing next month on three misdemeanor counts of child endangerment.

Police said they were called about 7 p.m. March 21 for a report of an unresponsive woman in the East Butler Volunteer Fire Company parking lot on Grant Avenue.

Troopers got there and found a medical crew treating Lazor. Nearby, her three children were in a vehicle with a couple who stopped to help.

The defendant’s oldest child told police that his mother drove him and his siblings to the park near the fire station, according to court documents. While outside playing, the boy recounted, he saw a friend of his mother’s drive up in a Jeep.

Then, Lazor got into the Jeep for several minutes before returning to her van. Her kids joined her in the van to check on her and to warm up from the cold.

The boy said his mother “started to act different and sleepy” once she was back in the van, a police affidavit said. She subsequently lost unconsciousness.

One of Lazor’s children flagged down a motorist, advising that their mother needed help. The couple in the passing car stopped and called 911.

Lazor was eventually taken to Butler Memorial Hospital, where police spoke to her. Police said she admitted using two stamp bags of heroin while caring for her children at the park.

She claimed it was her “first time using in almost four years,” a police affidavit said.

Lazor Thursday afternoon did not dispute the allegations in the criminal complaint. “Devastating” is how she described the charges.

“But I’m getting help,” she said, referring to addiction treatment. She also hopes to get her kids back.

Lazor’s preliminary hearing is set for May 2 at the office of District Judge Lewis Stoughton in Chicora.