A Salt Lake lawmaker, responding to a rash of drug overdose deaths this year where panicked friends didn't call 911 and watched the victims die, plans to introduce legislation that would make it a crime to not help someone they know is in trouble.

Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Salt Lake City, will sponsor the bill that would make it a class B misdemeanor to not render aid.

"Law enforcement feels like their hands are just tied. Parents are like, 'Isn't there any consequence for these kids that abandon their friends?' " she said. "If you're going to do drugs with your friends, and somebody gets into a bad situation, you can't just abandon them or you're going to be liable."

Although he has not yet seen the bill, Mike Sorich, Amelia's father, said he supported anything that would prevent a situation like what happened to his daughter from happening to someone else.

Amelia Sorich, 18, died in June after being injected twice with a "speedball," a mixture of cocaine and heroin, by her best friend during a party. But instead of calling 911 or a parent when they noticed Amelia was unconscious, they let her die, then dumped her body in the foothills above Bountiful.

The scenario was similar to that of 18-year-old Zachary Tyler Martinez, whose body was dumped at the Salt Lake County Hang-Gliding Park at the Point of the Mountain in March after he fatally overdosed.

"I think that there needs to be something done so that people just don't let people die. There has to be some consequence," Mike Sorich said. "If someone passes out and are on drugs, then there needs to be consequences (if no help is rendered). Currently the way the law sits now, there's nothing. I just think that's wrong."

Moss agreed to sponsor the bill after she was approached by Salt Lake County Sheriff's deputy Doug Lambert, a former member of the narcotics unit who specialized in juvenile drug use.

The idea for the bill came when Lambert responded to an overdose on the county's east side last month.

Stephen James Sill, 27, died of a drug overdose in November. He was living with a friend and was supposed to be up early, but slept in his downstairs bed all day. His friends later told investigators that they could hear what they described as a "death snore" coming from Sill, or very heavy, labored breathing.

"I thought, 'Wouldn't you want to go check on him?' " Lambert said.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that they tried to see if he was OK. "Instead of calling paramedics, (one of the friends) went to the freezer, got a bunch of ice cubes and put them on him to shock him (back to reality)," Lambert said.

Several hours later they called 911.