An Australian mum has issued a grave warning for parents to check on their children after her daughter suffered brain damage.
Chloe Nevins was described as a ‘happy’ and ‘healthy’ teenage girl before one incident changed her life forever.
The 16-year-old inhaled fumes from deodorant cans and was found lifeless in bushland in Logan.
She was rushed to hospital for treatment and when her mum arrived she asked doctors what had happened.
They told her her daughter was discovered with seven Rexona cans by her side and she had gone into cardiac arrest.
“Her heart stopped for 27 minutes,” her mum Sarah told 7News. “If it wasn’t for, you know, those first responders she’d be dead.”
As a result of the chroming experiencing, she’s now suffered permanent brain damage, will be disabled for the rest of her life and is now unable to speak.
Her mum explained: “She’s gone from a fully healthy kid running around to having everything done for her in hospital.”
Sarah wants retailers to make aerosol cans harder to access as rates of chroming continue to climb in Queensland.
The state’s health minister, Yvette D’ath said it’s ‘absolutely’ a conversation they need to be having as too many young people are suffering terrible repercussions for abusing the substance.
Also known as huffing, sniffing or rexing, chroming is the dangerous act of inhaling an aerosol spray usually containing solvents or other household chemicals in order to get high.
It’s called chroming because people sometimes use spray paint cans and it traditionally caused them to end up with chrome paint around their nose and mouth.
Children as young as 8 years old have been treated after suffering injuries from chroming.
Jeremy Hayllar, the Clinical Director of Brisbane’s Biala Community Health Service, told the ABC that the issue had become more prevalent in the community.
“I am aware that there does seem to be an increased number of very young kids who are running around the [Brisbane] CBD under the influence of solvents or inhalants,” Dr Hayllar said.
“All volatile substances are taken up very quickly in the brain and change the way that messages are sent around the brain.
“That can lead to loss of consciousness, so this young lad collapsed, [and] vomiting is a kind of response to things going badly wrong and later on the effects can be progressive.”
Sarah’s daughter is one of many who have become victims of the chroming trend. Just don’t do it.
