Boy Acted Drunk Then Passed Out for 6 Hours
Mother describes son acting drunk and passing out after swallowing Aqua Dots.
Nov. 8, 2007 — -- Shelby Esses remembers when her 20-month-old son Jacob became ill after apparently playing with and swallowing Aqua Dots, the latest toy made in China to be pulled from shelves by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
"He came stumbling out into the living room … and he just started weaving kind of like he was drunk or something and he fell down," Esses told "Good Morning America." "My husband picked him up, he was pretty limp, and then he started vomiting."
Jacob passed out, and Esses rushed him to the hospital where he was treated by Dr. Matt Jaeger.
"He was extremely sleepy, I could barely arouse him even to painful stimulation. … I would call him in a coma," Jaeger said. "It was pretty dramatic. He was unconscious in this coma for about six hours. And then over the course of just a few minutes went from being completely asleep to wide awake and playing like nothing ever happened."
Jacob and another American child who became ill have both come out of their comas and are fully recovered.
Jaeger said he does not expect that Jacob will suffer any lasting health effects.
Esses said when she called the company that makes Aqua Dots, they apologized to her.
"When I've called they've said, 'We're so sorry, it must have been terrible. I can't imagine,' that sort of thing," Esses said.
Aqua Dots products were expected to be some of the hottest holiday toys for 2007, but now some 4 million of them have been pulled from Web sites and taken off store shelves. Toys-R-Us, for instance, has issued an immediate "stop sale" order for Aqua Dots at all of its stores.
The hazard is bizarre: When swallowed, a chemical in the toys behaves like the so-called "date rape drug," GHB, which can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness and comas.
The toy consists of a bunch of beads that kids can use to make their own designs. When sprayed with water, a surface coating fuses the beads together.
Apparently the Chinese factory that made the toy used a glue that mimics GHB instead of the nontoxic glue it was supposed to use.
Doctors say GHB and compounds like it are even more hazardous to young children.
"The most serious consequence of some poisoning like GHB poisoning is death, and that's because it can cause the child to stop breathing," said Dr. Dana Best of the Children's National Medical Center.
"If you have a toy that's in good condition and is in the toy box and is a favorite toy, I don't know what to tell a parent," Best said. "And that's a really sad thing for the state of pediatrics and health care."
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