A kindergarten-going toddler reportedly collapsed after consuming a bottle of scented hand sanitizer. The child would later need to be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning with an alarming 0.23 blood alcohol level in Moon County, Pennsylvania.
The unfortunate incident happened after the 5-year-old girl showed up for the second day of her class at Moon Area’s J.H. Brooks Elementary School earlier this week. The young girl had set up her desk with pencils and supplies including a fresh bottle of hand sanitizer, which was on the list of school supplies for the kindergarten class.
However, the girl collapsed by lunch after she apparently consumed almost half of the sanitizer bottle, some 6 ounces of 70 percent alcohol, New York Daily News reported.
“The principal called and said to get to the school immediately,” the girl’s mom said. “She was walking a little wobbly down the hall. By the time they got to the classroom, to the lunchroom, she fell and couldn’t sit up straight.”
The school authorities reportedly rushed the little girl to the local Children’s Hospital for immediate treatment.
“She was completely out of it. I tried to wake her and she opened her eyes briefly and she looked at me, but it was almost as if she looked straight through me. And she started to cry and then she laid back down,” the mother said. “I was very scared. I had no idea. The medic didn’t have any idea either.”
Even though the girl recovered after a while, the girl's mother worries about her long-term prognosis. The mother didn't realize what caused the accident until the school authorities called her again.
“This class, each student has their own sanitizer pump bottle at their desk with their name on it for their personal use,” the mother said. “My daughter had consumed half of that bottle. She consumed 6 ounces of 70 percent alcohol.”
School Superintendent Barry Balaski said students are permitted to keep hand sanitizer in their desks or backpacks. He added that sanitizers are not mandatory and that parents can request their children to avoid carrying them to school, CBS Pittsburgh reported.
There has been an increase of about 50 percent in hand sanitizer exposure cases in the past 18 months, mostly with kindergarten children or younger, Dr. Michael Lynch, Head of Pittsburgh Poison Center said.
Dr. Lynch added that the number amounts to about 2,300 cases, most under the age of 5. He added that the condition of about 6 percent of those kids turned serious and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment.
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