Jessica Danielle Cunningham recounts 2012 overdose on 16 And Pregnant
Jessica Danielle Cunningham said she overdosed on heroin in 2012 and woke from a coma to learn she was four weeks pregnant with her second child. The former 16 and pregnant cast member said the overdose happened in the backseat of her best friend at the time's car, before doctors told her she could have been brain dead.
Jamie and Jayleigh
Cunningham, 32, said she and Jamie found out they were going to have another child after she woke up surrounded by her family. “Jamie and me, we found out we were going to have another kid. I was pregnant, very early. Four weeks pregnant with my daughter,” she said. In 2013, they welcomed daughter Jayleigh.
Heroin, Xanax, Percocet
Before the overdose, Cunningham said she had moved from partying to Xanax, Percocet and heroin. “I just started partying. And then all of a sudden pills started going into the parties and we're doing Xanax, and then it was Percocet, and when I was 17, I had somebody shoot me up with heroin,” she said. She also said someone first shot her up with heroin when she was 17.
The car ride to hospital
“In 2012, I got a bag of heroin. I was in the backseat of my best friend at the time's car. We'll go to McDonald's. It's like two in the morning. I overdosed in the backseat of her car,” Cunningham said in an exclusive clip from Hollywood Demons shared with PEOPLE. Her friend drove her to the hospital because she did not want to call the cops, and Cunningham said, “Back then, Narcan wasn't a thing like it is today, where you can just Narcan, send you on your way. So, I'm like, choking on my tongue. She doesn't want to call the cops, so she drives me all the way to the hospital. By the time I got to the hospital, I was black and blue, and they're saying I was gonna be brain dead.”
Miracle baby Jayleigh
Cunningham said she never touched heroin again after that night, and she called Jayleigh her “miracle baby.” “I just overdosed with one kid. That's a rough one,” she said. The sequence matters because it ties her recovery to the immediate aftermath of the overdose, not to some long recovery arc that followed later.
