Children & Hand Sanitizer Warning

A Message From Juliana

If you have young nieces or nephews or know someone with younger children, please read this.

My 4 year old niece was rushed to the ER Friday morning while in school.  She started falling over, couldn't focus, and was vomitting.  When she arrived at the hospital, they did a blood test for alcohol levels.  Hers was well over the legal limit.  To make a long story short, my sister told me my niece likes the taste of hand sanatizer and put it out of her reach.  While in school, the children use it and apparently she injested without the teachers knowledge.  Her alcohol content was the result of the hand sanatizer poisoning, more common in young children than we realize.   My niece's school is now prohibiting the use of hand gel in younger grades and will be sending home a flyer about the dangers of hand sanitizer in young hands.

 

Apparently this has been known for awhile, but wasn't largely published. The following links discuss this little known issue:

 

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/medical/a/hand_sanitizer.htm

 

http://www.livestrong.com/article/131474-hazards-hand-sanitizers-children/

I'm not trying to scare anyone with small children, but seeing first hand what happened to my niece, I think the word needs to be spread more.

 

Love,

Juliana