Getting drunk on hand sanitizer; Kids being rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning

Just the other day, 6-year-old Nhaijah Russell has been rushed to the emergency room from her school as her words were getting all slurry and she was unable to walk steadily. The little girl had swallowed about 3 squirts of liquid hand sanitizer at school as she said it tasted like strawberries. She obviously had no clue that it contained enough alcohol to make her drunk and give her alcohol poisoning.

It was declared by poison control hotlines all through US that since 2010, there has been about a 400% increase in emergency calls concerning the ingestion of hand sanitizer by children under the age of 12.

Dr. Gaylord Lopez of the Georgia Poison Center said, “Kids are getting into these products more frequently, and unfortunately, there’s a percentage of them going to the emergency room.”

It was investigated that many children ingesting the liquid sanitizer is not even aware of the amount of alcohol content in the product. While beer contains only 5% alcohol, wine contains only 12%, hand sanitizers on the other hand contains somewhere between 45% to 95% alcohol, therefore even the smallest amount of sanitary can end up causing alcohol poisoning in people.

Russell had been rushed to the hospital only to find that the alcohol content in her blood had been .179. She had been observed by doctors overnight because of signs of brain trauma after her drunken state has caused her to fall and then hit her head.

Her mother, Ortoria Scott, said, “That was very scary. It could have been very lethal for my child.”

Lopez also explained why so many children are ingesting hand sanitizer without thinking about the consequences.

He said”A kid is not thinking this is bad for them. A lot of the more attractive [hand sanitizers]are the ones that are scented. There are strawberry, grape, orange-flavored hand sanitizers that are very appealing to kids.”

Lopez has recommended both teachers and parents to either replace hand sanitizers with sanitizing wipes or non-alcohol based products or keeping products like hand sanitizer out of children’s reach.

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Tasnuva Rahim

I have been writing ever since I can remember, but that is because school made me do so against my will. Today here I am, standing strong because my mentors could see my flair which had undoubtedly mirrored in my school papers and the essays that never failed to amaze them. The strength of my words, the power of my insight and creativity is something I cherish very closely and I hope that someday it will be worth more than it is now. It is their encouragement and the faith that I had in myself taken me so many places, brought in so many surprises that I am grateful for them each and every day. I have worked for Dhaka tribune, written travel blogs collected from the time when I was working for an inbound travel agency. I have covered stories on cultures and norms of our country for a local lifestyle magazine Ice Today magazine. As of now I’m working as a freelance content writer and loving every moment of it.