Friday, March 13, 2009

Important Warning

A friend sent this information to me and I'm only sharing it because I think it is very IMPORTANT to get the word out.
So many of us have or are around kids.

Please note: This story was verified at SNOPES .
Story:
Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Halle , who is 4, was rushed to the emergency room by her father for being severely lethargic and incoherent. He was called to her school by the school secretary for being 'very VERY sick.' He told me that when he arrived, Halle was barely sitting in the chair. She couldn't hold her own head up and when he looked into her eyes, she couldn't focus them.

He immediately scooped her up and rushed her to the ER, and then called me.
When we got there, they ran blood test after blood test and did x-rays, every test imaginable. Her white blood cell count was normal, nothing was out of the ordinary. The ER doctor told us that he had done everything that he could do so he was sending her to Saint Francis for further tests.
Right when we were leaving in the ambulance, her teacher came to the ER and, after questioning Halle's classmates, we found out that she had licked hand sanitizer off her hand. Hand sanitizer, of all things.

But it makes sense. These days they have all kinds of different scents and when you have a curious child, they are going to put all kinds of things into their mouths.
When we arrived at Saint Francis, we told the ER doctor there to check her blood alcohol level, and yes we did get weird looks, but they did it.
The results showed her blood alcohol level was 85% -- six hours after we first took her. There's no telling what it would have been if we would have requested it at the first ER.
Since then, her school and a few surrounding schools have taken this out of the classrooms of all the lower grade classes, but what's to stop middle and high school kids from ingesting the stuff?

After doing research on the Internet, we have found out that it only takes 3 squirts of the stuff to be fatal in a toddler. For her blood alcohol level to be so high was to compare someone her size to drinking something 120 proof.
So please PLEASE don't disregard this because I don't ever want anyone else to go through what my family and I have gone through.
Please send this to everyone you know who has children or are going to be having children. It doesn't matter what age. Please help get the word out.

5 comments:

Heather said...

Ewww. that is pretty scary! Thanks for the heads up!

Diane said...

Who would have ever imagined that hand sanitizer would be the culprit? We have it in all of our Curves clubs and I am going to post a warning. Thanks for the info!

Andrea said...

My mom told me about this the other day. So scary!

wendy said...

YIKES - that is frightening. I will have to tell my kids.

Brittany said...

Thanks for this post, I had no idea!