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bonyponyride t1_j62ruts wrote

The article says the girl had only sprayed an excessive amount in her room, and doesn't mention her huffing it. I can't imagine how much would have to be sprayed in a room to create a deadly concentration of deodorant propellant. Is that possible, or are the parents presenting it that way for a future lawsuit?

The article also mentions the girl was autistic, and this is really tragic, so against my initial instinct, I will not make any axe puns. And now I've ruined the opportunity for everyone else.

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ReverendSupreme t1_j62sy8g wrote

My brother is autistic and he sprays an excessive amount of deodorant on himself before he goes out as he doesn't know the appropriate amount to spray. I could easily see this being a genuine accident given a small enough room. Poor girl

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bonyponyride t1_j62t9qj wrote

The father mentions it was the mother's deodorant, and the girl sprayed it on her blankets because it gave her comfort. Maybe she went under her blanket and sprayed an excessive amount, creating a toxic environment.

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Blenderx06 t1_j62usgz wrote

You can't really smell yourself so it's easy to put on too much. I made it a rule that I'll only do 2-3 sprays of my perfume so I never go overboard. He could make a rule of counting to 2 or something for however long he might spray, with your help to decide how much is just right?

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SlimChiply t1_j62wmkm wrote

Although it's an important article, it should be known that the girl passed away of May of last year

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Plantsandanger t1_j62y573 wrote

My guess is she may have had an asthmatic reaction that resulted in reduced lung capacity and passed out. Falling from standing can be lethal. She may have had a cardiac event due to inhaling so much deodorant spray, especially if it was impacting her breathing and she was feaking out/having a pain attach.

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Aerik t1_j6386o7 wrote

>Giorgia was autistic and her father said she liked to spray deodorant on blankets as she found the smell comforting.

>"The smell of it gave her a certain sense of relaxation," said Mr Green.

>"If she was feeling in any way a little bit anxious, she would spray this spray and it would give her a sense of comfort because it's a deodorant my wife used."

This sounds like the dad rationalizing it to himself. Did he witness her spraying it over the bed? Maybe not. Maybe he just listened to an explanation of the scent when he was doing laundry. Maybe, she had learned to hot-box under the blanket. Was it just a teenager getting high? Was her explanation honest and that's just the way she was actually doing it? Who knows?

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caseyyp t1_j639tyf wrote

Some dumb kids were spraying dry shampoo in each other's faces and almost killed a girl with a corn allergy because it had corn starch in it at the MS I worked at. These spray cans should not be sold to kids or left with them! So tragic.

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HardlyDecent t1_j63fgt9 wrote

For the record, we 100% can smell ourselves, especially if it's something added to our natural musk. The rule of perfume, if you're unclear, to use is always as little as possible, period. It's not to mask your scent.

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sirboddingtons t1_j63fy3e wrote

This happened with a can of febreeze to our school nurse's child in elementary. Her daughter who was round 5 at the time decided to freshen up the room for company and did as she always had seen her mother, spray the can, but instead she unloaded the can, completely emptied it into their small dining room. She went unconscious and then required life support for several weeks.

Permanent brain damage to the point of essentially functioning as a child for the rest of her life.

Story scared the crap out of little 2nd grade me about aerosol cans.

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Faustkatt t1_j63pt42 wrote

Maybe cynical of me but complaining the warnings aren't big enough really sounds like they just want to feel like it wasn't their fault because they didn't think to read it, or didn't follow it, and now wish they had been forced to.

I don't think we miss warnings because they're small. We know they're there. Just about anything has them, from sprays to toys to batteries to food. What doesn't have a warning on it is probably a shorter list than what does.

We ignore them because we're inundated with them. They're background noise. We have to make a conscious choice to stop ignoring them when we are in a situation that they matter.

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Derpman2099 t1_j63raod wrote

reminds me of the episode of House where the dudes alien hand sysdrome was trying to tell him that his deodorant was killing him.

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reflUX_cAtalyst t1_j63ubop wrote

> Is that possible

If she stood there and sprayed and entire can in a cupboard, it might make you sick.

Spraying a can in a room will NOT kill you. The parents are lying - she was huffing it. It's impossible otherwise.

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GoochMasterFlash t1_j63un95 wrote

Makes me wish spray deodorant was banned in schools. I remember a major part of middle school gym class was people getting into axe spray fights in the lockers. You couldnt breathe in there with two or three people spraying them at each other

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christophlc6 t1_j63xwlq wrote

Here to start the distasteful "death by axe" pun thread

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letmestandalone t1_j63ygus wrote

In high school I was in a music practice room with a small group and someone threw a can of axe in the room which had been stuck open with a straw or something. They then immediately shut the door and jammed it shut, which wasn’t hard because there were so many chairs in the hall as it was being used to store the excess practice chairs. We were desperate to get out. I’m not asthmatic but I am allergic to most perfumes, and axe is one of the worst. I had to be sent home because I was throwing up and struggling to breathe. We didn’t see who threw the can in and the school never followed up, but they could have killed someone, maybe even me, doing that. I’m still kinda furious someone didn’t get suspended over that.

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WolfThick t1_j6403uk wrote

God damn I was hoping this wouldn't come back where I grew up in West Texas this was a big deal and the native American communities all the way up into New Mexico. Along with the straining Lysol through bread it was killing them because they made it a dry county. What's next gypsum weed.

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almosttape t1_j640wrv wrote

Considering spray deodorant is apparently deadly.. It’s amazing any middle school football players ever made it to adulthood.

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wart_on_satans_dick t1_j647dw4 wrote

This sounds more plausible than from spraying it in the open air. I would not have guessed it could incubate a lethal amount if true, but it just goes to show how dangerous some ordinary household products are. This is very sad.

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ZeroAfro t1_j6497y3 wrote

I feel for the parents but this is on them. They knew she sprayed it all over her room because she liked the smell but still enabled her do it. You could plaster warnings all over the bottle AND make people sigh a waiver before being able to buy it and this would still happen.

Common sense tells you not to do it or to let someone else do it and the bottle itself warns you.

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TheIncontrovert t1_j64fw7q wrote

Worse still the dad called for more labeling on products as "The awareness isn't there yet" There are fucktons of labeling on products. Do they need them to be more specific?

"Do not leave this product unattended with a child that uses it to soothe anxiety and is unlikely to understand the dangers of too much aerosol in a closed environment"

Don't think they could fit that on the tin. Even if they did, the next idiot parent would say "It's too small"

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Odd-Cartoonist-288 t1_j64hj2t wrote

Jesus Christ, I swear to god these class action lawsuits are so pointless on so many levels. All they usually are is a small fine for these companies. Lately they have just been trying to transfer the debt to another company and declare bankruptcy.

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deluxebee t1_j650sci wrote

A young boy died from excessive use of spray deodorant years ago. Had to Google it. Daniel Hurley, 12, 2008. Says also from Derbyshire.

Oh geez, it’s also in the article OP posted. Leaving this here for folks who aren’t gonna read the article.

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sluttttt t1_j651qxt wrote

I worked for Rite Aid and there was some lawsuit regarding unpaid overtime. I probably had been out of there for a decade when I got a check for like $5 in the mail. I wonder if those who were actually affected by the issue got the same--which I'm sure was not enough.

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gravescd t1_j65g10d wrote

There was a guy down the hall from me my freshman year of college who would huff Axe to get high, in addition to smoking weed. I was in his room one time and saw a blackened little oblong thing in his weed pipe. He had tried to smoke a Tylenol.

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PickReviewsMovies t1_j65i0uo wrote

My brother is autistic and for whatever reason he has always been really into cologne and body sprays. He is 40 now, a bit older than me and understands restraint a bit but if left unchecked I could see him absolutely doing something like this. He's generally very health conscious, though. Sometimes my parents would make him get rid of his excess clothes would go rescue them from the garbage secretly and hide them somewhere until they got mildewy, but after we explained to him that mold can make you sick, he started finding more creative ways to hide stuff my parents tried to make him get rid of.

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MMcDeer t1_j660t4v wrote

Per NYPost

Authorities found 42 empty aerosol cans of deodorant, hairspray and other products in the room (https://nypost.com/2023/01/26/derby-girl-14-dies-after-accidentally-breathing-in-aerosol-deodorant/?dicbo=v2-a4ba165211182bfb2160fafc4ecf1644)

That's a lot!. Wow. Who knows how much was sprayed but it must have been a very excessive amount.

Edit: the 42 cans was for a different case of someone who died. Unclear for this instance.

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Good-Duck t1_j66cf2p wrote

My great aunt died of lung cancer and the doctors believed her using copious amounts of hair spray may have been a factor. One with glitter in it blew up around her and she ended up breathing it in while trying to get out of the bathroom.

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_Bob_A_Feet_ t1_j66wzmz wrote

If only more people paid attention to what’s in the things we buy and how a LOT of them can kill you if used improperly. It’s sad to see so many clueless folks off themselves in situations like this.

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edingerc t1_j67lkjx wrote

This reminds me of a story I heard years ago about a teenager who huffed Scotchguard. Oxygen passes through the walls of the lungs into the blood stream. It's a bad idea to waterproof those walls... He didn't survive and went out like a fish on land.

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Faustkatt t1_j68530q wrote

I mean you would probably intuit that if you have a food allergy you might want to pay attention to the warnings on food. That if you were giving a toy to a young child you may want to check for small separate parts that pose a choking risk, including button batteries. I doubt you'd let children handle sprays of any kind without at the very least checking what happens if it gets in their eyes. If you're cleaning a room that can't be well ventilated it might be a good time to see just what you're in for if you breathe in the fumes coming off the cleaning products. et cetera, et cetera.

This stuff is mostly common sense. People are just fallible, they get complacent, especially with something that could be dangerous under the wrong circumstances but is also an everyday thing people use all the time without issues.

In this case, I fully expect their proposed change would be pretty useless. A big sign saying 'solvent use can kill instantly' doesn't even give you any additional unsafe behaviour to avoid—unless you're expected to stop using deodorant entirely, thinking you may at any point and under any circumstances drop dead. Realistically people will not stop, it'll just be one more line after the long paragraph of warnings already on that product, and people will still occasionally miss their cue to go back and re-read the warnings.

I'd speculate that if this is disproportionately an issue then a public awareness campaign probably has more staying power in our minds, and might give people a stronger indication when it comes up that they should go back and read the warnings. But even then, you probably have to be careful not to saturate people with them. If you see one for every case of a thing sometimes but not usually lethal, those might end up background noise too.

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Mississimia t1_j68btxd wrote

I mean, its true. We're inundated with warnings. But honestly, who would let "keep out of reach of children" stop them from giving deodorant to their (stinky) teen?

The parents want to believe the only way this tragedy could have been stopped is if the manufacturer had been more responsible. But the best chance to stop this tragedy was not by avoiding giving the deodorant to her in the first place, but by taking it away from her when it became clear she wasn't using it safely and appropriately.

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cateml t1_j68d5hc wrote

Oh god that is heartbreaking.

And yes to add - I remember hearing over the years cautionary tales about similar to the story posted.
It seems excessive, but you’ve got to keep in mind what kids of that age are like - may be very self conscious about their bodies, may be very worried about the idea of someone saying they smell or of it being used as ammunition by bullies, and well not take caution in ways that adults would automatically. I seem to remember in the story I heard it mentioning a boy who may have had OCD, so factoring that in as well.

Normally the room will still be ventilated enough and they would cough or feel woozy and eventually stop. But you just need the wrong set of factors occurring together to risk it ending tragically.

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WirelessBCupSupport t1_j68fw2x wrote

Title seems to imply the girl might have been huffing. Further investigation reveals "Autistic girl dies from access to over 40 cans of aerosol deodorants", Kinda want to look at the girl's parents for not being diligent on access to so much, and why the father makes it like its the deodorant's fault. Now, they no longer have their daughter.

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IPA___Fanatic t1_j6957hr wrote

The deodorant needs no further warnings. The daughter misused the cans, accident or not.

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HardlyDecent t1_j697thq wrote

Crazy huh? Today we've learned to whisper sweetly to the ice cold gin that somewhere in the dark closet is a bottle of vermouth. Then we strain our delightful Martini into a frosty glass and chuckle to it that there are people who put vodka of all things in Martini glasses! What a world!

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ironically-spiders t1_j6bci1q wrote

Yes to both you and the person you responded to. They put the appropriate warning on there and you assume people are going to use a product even remotely close to how you're supposed to. If you drink an entire bag of coffee in one sitting, it's not the coffee maker's fault when you have a heart attack as a result.

It's a tragedy, but it's not the fault of the deodorant maker. Aerosols should not be inhaled in great amounts. At all. They knew she wasn't doing a quick spritz, it's their responsibility to keep her safe when she can't make that kind of decision on her own.

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ironically-spiders t1_j6ev7wl wrote

Which is just stupid! Regardless, it is their fault for allowing her to have unsupervised access to it if she can't regulate the use appropriately, autistic or not. Instructions and warnings are there. If you choose to not read them, it's on you when something bad as warned would happen. It sucks, but that's the truth.

You let your kid, who even under the best neurotypical high intelligence cases is still a minor without a fully developed brain, do something they shouldn't, the guardian is at fault. If a toddler is left outside by a pool unsupervised, it's not the fault of the pool company when they fall in and drown; it's the parents'. If you let your kid have a bottle of tylenol and don't teach them the proper dosing and precautions and they accidentally OD, it's not Tylenol's fault, it's the parents'. It's unfortunate and it's unintentional, but it still falls on the parents when all the warnings and instructions are right there (or easily accessed). They could use this as a learning moment and spread that knowledge to more parents who are ignorant to it. Take a more active role, monitor your kids, teach them proper use of things, learn about the safety and safe use of things before handing them off to kids. Blaming the manufacturers doesn't solve anything.

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