When Liam and I are out and about Shanghai, I pretty much let him touch anything. It is simply too much effort to be saying “No!” every few seconds. He sits on the floor, grabs things and puts his hands in many disgusting places. My comfort has always been knowing that I have my little bottle of Purell hand sanitizer to kill all the nasty germs.
Recently, I heard the following story about hand sanitizers, which I feel compelled to share:
“Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Halle, who is just 4 years old, was rushed to the ER by her father for being severely lethargic and incoherent in her classroom. The school secretary called him to the school and told him that Halle was very sick. My husband told me that, when he arrived at her classroom, Halle was barely sitting up in her 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 closest ER.
When he 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. When I arrived at the ER, the doctor told us that he had done everything he could do so he was transferring her to Saint Francis Hospital for further tests. Right as we were leaving the in the ambulance, her teacher arrived at the ER and told us that, after questioning Halle’s classmates, she had found out that our little girl had licked liquid hand sanitizer off of her hands.
When we arrived at the Saint Francis’ Hospital’s ER, we told the ER doctor 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 took her to the hospital. There is no telling what it would have been if we would have requested it at the first ER.
After doing research on the Internet, we found out that it only takes about three squirts of the stuff ingested to be fatal to a toddler. For Halle’s blood alcohol level to be so high, it would like someone her size drinking 120 proof liquor!”
After hearing this scary story, as between the hand sanitizer and the germs, I am opting for the germs, clearly the lesser of two evils. I hope you all do the same.
Photo by Bratha at www.flickr.com
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If you have small children in your house, hopefully you carefully read and heed all warning labels. Any product labeled “Keep out of reach of children. If swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away.” should be locked away and used with extreme caution. It's not hard.
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yeah, pretty bizarre, scary and factually inaccurate. i hope you're not getting paid for posting random chain e-mails/rumours up here - did you research this at all?
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know that 85% is a non existent measure of BAC, right? it is a bizarre story though, even more bizarre that you would publish a story without realizing that it is certainly not true!
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I figured the 85% was a misprint. No one could be alive with 85% of the blood being booze.
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as tfarwell17 just mentioned, Shanghaiist have just pointed out the factual innaccuracies http://shanghaiist.com/2009/06/30/yeah_dont_ban_those_hand_sanitizers.php
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Seriously guys, this is beyond lazy reporting, especially with something as important as this...
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C'mon, have a bit of understanding ... she only wrote last week about how pregnancy and motherhood have shrunk her brain ...
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'This past weekend, my apparently very small brain made a fool of me.' (My Brain's Degeneration by Fiona Huang).. guess what ... it happened again...
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Sorry everyone if I passed on an untrue story. I admit that a very good friend passed this information onto me and wrote that it was true. I did not do further research but will have to get back to you.
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I did some Internet research tonight on the issue and it turns out that the story is absolutely true, except that the blood alcohol level was misprinted. Many sources confirmed the dangers of hand sanitizers. Also, I found this report: On May 14, 2007, Fox23-TV in Tulsa reported that 4-year-old Halle Butler of Okmulgee, Oklahoma was hospitalized with symptoms of intoxication after ingesting a small amount of hand sanitizer in her pre-kindergarten classroom. The product, which consists of 62% ethyl alcohol (more than most hard liquors), had been applied to the children's hands by their teacher just before lunchtime, but instead of rubbing it in, Halle licked it off her skin and essentially got drunk. She was fine once the alcohol had worked its way through her system, but the incident threw such a fright into parents and administrators alike that further use of the product was banned in the school. I should note that the email contains one apparent factual error (or perhaps it's only a typo), namely that the Halle's blood alcohol level was measured at "85%" in the emergency room -- an impossibly high percentage. The author probably intended to write ".085" A similar mishap was reported last January in Minneapolis, where 2-year-old Sydney Moe ate some of the hand sanitizer gel her mother kept by the sink and was rushed to the emergency room with a blood alcohol concentration of .10 percent -- legally drunk, by the statutes in most states. She, too, recovered quickly, but the Minnesota Poison Control Center warned that the high alcohol content of hand sanitizers and other common household products such as mouthwash and perfumes can pose a serious health threat to small children and should be kept out of their reach except under parental supervision. Some hand sanitizers contain isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol, making them even more dangerous to ingest. I will also discuss this with my pediatrician when Clara goes for her visit next week. Hope this helps.
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I saw my pediatrician today. She had never heard of this story but says that it is entirely possible. She usually recommends that parents buy water based hand sanitizers instead of alcohol based ones. At the Parkway pediatrics wing, there is even a big warning sign on top of the Purell hand sanitizer dispenser.
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wow, that is pretty bizarre and scary.