The family of a 13-year-old Australian girl who died from “chroming” has urged action to prevent similar deaths from occurring. “We want to help other children not fall into the silly trap of doing this silly thing.
It’s unquestionable that this will be our crusade,” Paul Haynes, the girl’s father, told the Australian outlet the Herald Sun. “No matter how much you lead a horse to water, anyone can drag them away.
It’s not something she would have done on her own. “The ripple effect is that this is absolutely devastating. We’ve got no child to bring home.” Esra Haynes died after she inhaled fumes from a deodorant can, causing her to go into cardiac arrest on March 31.
She remained on life support for eight days, at which point doctors determined her brain was “damaged beyond repair” and her family decided to turn off the machines.
The act, also known as “huffing”, can also involve inhaling the dangerous fumes from metallic paints, solvents, petrol, and household chemicals.
Mr. Haynes said that his daughter suffered a cardiac arrest and spent a week-and-a-half in hospital, where he and his family watched “her struggle to stay alive”.
“In the end, we had to make the decision, we had to turn off her life support,” he was quoted as saying. It was really devastating, devastating for everyone involved, all her friends as well.”
According to the Independent, He said that since her death the family has struggled to eat and sleep. “It’s been the most difficult, traumatic time any parent could go through. We haven’t been sleeping, we’ve hardly been eating, we haven’t been smiling, we’re not ourselves,” he said.
“I think I’ve aged ten years. “But it’s not just affected us, it’s the community as well.” Mr. Haynes said there needed to be awareness around the lethal act to prevent such deaths in the future.
“We need to ramp it up and let these kids find out the information first-hand, and not through friends, and not through social media – then they’re given the right advice off the bat.”
“If we were educated and the word had been put out there, we would have had the discussion around our kitchen table for sure,” Mr Haynes said.
