Raise your hand if you've ever taken a hit of helium to make your voice sound squeaky. Now put it down if you've ever warned your kids not to mess around with helium. If your hand just went down, you might want to call the kids into the room to hear this story.
A teenage girl named Ashley Long went to a slumber party last weekend. But instead of coming home exhausted from too much gabbing and giggle, the 14-year-old is dead. Doctors are saying the Oregon teenager died from an obstruction in a blood vessel caused by inhaling helium from a pressurized tank.
I guess I have your attention now?
This story scared the pants off of me, to be honest. When I was a kid, this was just good -- I'll even say clean -- fun. We weren't doing drugs in a back alley. We were talking like idiots. We were the good kids! And that's just the type of thinking that could get your kid killed, it seems.
Doctors are saying it's relatively rare to die from helium inhalation, but considering I'd never heard of it until now, it's less rare than I would think or hope. Just a little Googling, and I found a 17-year-old boy who died of it in 2010, and four people, including a 10-year-old boy, who were claimed in just the span of a week back in 2006. And there were reports of scary things like burst lungs and serious hemorrhaging.
All that risk so you can sound like Donald Duck? Yeaaaaah, so not worth it!
My heart goes out to Ashley's parents right now, because I'm betting they never even thought to tell their daughter not to do this. Because really, who has? Well, now, hopefully, a lot of us. We should all add this one to the list of things that don't seem that bad, but are worth talking to the kids about anyway.
Does it scare you that the most innocuous seeming things could end up costing your kids their lives?
Image via ursonate/Flickr
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Comments 21
Dying from inhaling helium is nothing new. I've known this. My 13 sil does it all the time. I have warned her and warned her.
I was pretty sure there was something missing in the information. Inhaling the helium from one balloon is not going to hurt you. Breathing helium in and of itself will not hurt you unless you are depriving yourself of oxygen. Deep sea divers use a mixture of helium and oxygen to dive deeper, stay down longer and reduce the risk of getting the bends. (Have you never seen The Abyss?)
The big thing here is that it was a pressurized tank like the Balloon Time tanks you can buy at Walmart. That would not have a regulator on it. It would come out full force which can kill you no matter what is coming out of it. If you go suck on the hose from the air compressor at the gas station you can get the same effect.
I hate when anyone does it a party. I put a stop to it right away! When I worked evening shift at a grocery store one of the baggers went to help a lady in flowers/balloons area. He came back talking with the squeaky voice and laughed about it. Then he went back to do it again. This time he came back and acted completely drunk. I told him to stop it or he could get really sick! He went back anyway and did it again. This time he didn't come back. Another bagger found him on the floor nearly unconscious!! Scared the crap out of me. I swore then that I would NEVER allow anyone I knew to suck helium..even from a balloon!
And my parents always thought i was being weird when I told them it didn't seem like a good idea...i have never inhaled helium because I was a nerdy kid and knew about the physics of helium and lungs and there just seemed to be a creepy high risk involved
I disagree with those who say that there is a difference between inhaling helium from the balloon and the tank. I knew a boy who died from inhaling helium from the balloon. I went to elementary school with him back in the early to mid 70's.That was the last time I did anything like that!
Yah like Cass said (not saying the Helium from a pressurized tank didn't help) the girl was also drinking heavily. Which to be honest is probably why she thought it would be alright to take a hit. And anyway something about the helium doesn't agree with our bodies anyway it's not like oxygen so when you take a hit you take in less oxygen the more hits the less oxygen.
thats so sad she was very yongen she had a hole life ahide of her