hand sanitizer scare

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Specializes in home health, hospital, medical office.

:bugeyes:I had an incident this week that woke us all up to an intersting fact!! Just wondering if anyone else has ever had this to happen.

A 5th grade student came in around 9:00 with a bad headache (her mom works here at the school and told me to give her some tylenol) so i administered liq. tylenol and sent her to class. Abouth 40 minutes later she came back in and was unable to finish a sentence. I kept asking her what was wrong, her reply was...."I feel like.........." over and over and over....her pupils were normal..all outward signs were normal. I know this child and knew she was either pulling my leg, wanting attention or something was out of whack, so i went and got her mom to come talk to her. She got the same responses. We stood her up, she walked like she was drunk, her speech became slurred...she could not tell me her name......so mom took her to the ER....they did a tox screen and CT of her brain...all came back ok, only showing she had acetamen. in her blood along with 3% ethyl alcohol.

We racked our brains trying to figure out where it came from. Mom took the bottle of tylenonl i had used back to hospital and had it checked.. It came back fine of course. They questioned her to see if someone has "slipped" her something....after an entire day of going over and over what could have or might have happened. They determined that she had used sanitizer on her hands, blew her nose, used more, then she is a nail biter so she chewed on her fingernails.........well, long story short.......the doc in the ER said it was like she had gotten the sanintzer in her system and got drunk!!!

geez.......what a scare for us.........i only worry about our little ones in prek and kg using it and licking it off their hands but not the 5th graders getting alcohol poisoning!!!

what a week this has been.....will be glad when it is over.

HOpe the rumors around our small town are not going around that the school nurse now has "happy hour" in her office at 9 every morning!!

have a good weekend all you nurses,

Tabitha

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i would be thinking she more than chewed her nails........

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
i would be thinking she more than chewed her nails........

Me too. Pica maybe?

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if that 3% is equal to 0.03 on the BAL scale, do you really think she got that from chewing her nails?

i am thinking she was nipping right out of the bottle.....and why would this stuff be needed in school any way?

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Specializes in cardiac/critical care/ informatics.
if that 3% is equal to 0.03 on the BAL scale, do you really think she got that from chewing her nails?

i am thinking she was nipping right out of the bottle.....and why would this stuff be needed in school any way?

Maybe because MRSA is in the schools too.

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Specializes in acute rehab, med surg, LTC, peds, home c.

This sounds a little odd to me. I hope the md is not just chalking it up to hand sanitizer if the kid has a more serious problem. I cant see how a 10 yr old could get enough ETOH in her system to have gotten drunk unless she was drinking the hand sanitizer. I would keep a close eye on that kid, there might be something else going on.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

That is scary. Did she have access to the hand sanitizer when no one was around? Could she have purposefully ingested it? If it is possible to get that much in your system by nail biting, I am really concerned about the safety of the product. I am sure she is not the first nail biter to use the product. At my school I have a bottle for my personal use in my office, and I have seen some teachers give each kid a squirt on their hands after bathroom time, but it is not in the restrooms or in each classroom. I really am curious to know how she got THAT much in her system!

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Maybe because MRSA is in the schools too.

from what i gather, this stuff isnt recommended in other than a healthcare setting......because it is allowing/encouraging the most virulent bact/virus......

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Specializes in School Nursing.

Morte, I hadn't heard that. Do you have a source? I am interested because I do use it personally when I do not have access to soap/water or in really gross public bathrooms I use both.

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Specializes in Cath Lab, OR, CPHN/SN, ER.

I swear I've read the same story on Snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/sanitizer.asp

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Specializes in acute rehab, med surg, LTC, peds, home c.
I swear I've read the same story on Snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/sanitizer.asp

I can't believe what I've read. Why in the world would a kid do that?

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
I can't believe what I've read. Why in the world would a kid do that?

Because they're kids! I've transported kids of all ages (some who should have known better) for ingesting things like Kerosene, Lamp oil, Draino, Cascade, bleach, fertilizer, plant food, algicide (looks like candy), antifreeze.

I'm disturbed by the new air freshener that's being advertized. You know, the one that is sort of colorful and chunky that you can put it any bowl you want. I forget who makes it but the first time I saw it I thought some kid is going to ingest that because it looks just like hard candy!

As for the 10 year old. Something in the back of my mind is making me wonder if she isn't a closet alcoholic.

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