Poison control centers see spike in children swallowing hand sanitizer
On Monday, a 6-year-old girl from Georgia was hospitalized after drinking hand sanitizer, a incident that reflects an increase in similar incidents.
According to analysis by the Georgia Poison Center, calls coming in to centers nationwide have increased from 3,266 in 2010 to 16,117 in 2014— a nearly 400 percent increase.
The young Georgia girl, Nhaijah Russell, was unable to walk, slurred her words and ended up falling and hitting her head. She was hospitalized overnight after consuming three or four squirts of hand sanitizer, which she said tasted like strawberry, CNN reported.
Russell’s blood alcohol level was .179, twice what’s considered legally drunk in an adult, according to Dr. Chris Ritchey, who treated her at Gwinnett Medical Center near Atlanta.