A 12-year-old boy almost lost his life after taking part in a dangerous social media trend. Caesar Watson-King sniffed a can of deodorant as part of a challenge called “chroming” and fell unconscious at his home in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, on August 21, reports said. Metro,
His mother, Nicola King, who had just gone upstairs from breastfeeding her youngest child, was alarmed by a loud bang and ran downstairs to investigate. Nicola King, 36, was horrified to see that her son had first suffered a seizure and then a heart attack.
Nicola’s eldest son, Caden, immediately called 999 while Nicola performed CPR on Cesar while they waited for an ambulance. Cesar was rushed to hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma for two days as he suffered further seizures and cardiac arrest.
Luckily, Cesar recovered and is now back home, but mum-of-four Nicola has shared photos of her son’s CPR and intensive care to warn others about the dangers of chroming. The trend involves inhaling toxic chemicals from substances such as paints, solvents, aerosol cans, cleaning products or petrol to get a brief ‘high’.
This practice can cause slurred speech, dizziness, hallucinations, nausea and disorientation, but it can also lead to heart attack or suffocation.
Recalling the moment she heard her son fall, Nicola said, “I had just finished breastfeeding my baby and was going to sleep when I heard a very loud bang. I thought one of the children had done something. I heard Cesar crawling downstairs and thought he was going to get something to eat. The bang sounded like someone had fallen. I heard a groan from downstairs and thought Cesar had broken a bone or something. When I went downstairs, I saw him lying on the floor, and his eyes were rolling back. It was terrifying. He was having a seizure.”
Nicola ran upstairs to get her phone, but her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t open the phone, so she asked her eldest son to call an ambulance. Then she began performing CPR on Cesar to help him breathe.
“I thought he fell and hit his head. I had no idea what had happened. He turned blue and stopped breathing. I thought he was dead. I was in total shock. I watched my son die and saw his eyes go blind.”
After Cesar was taken to Doncaster Royal Infirmary, the police told Nicola that they had found a can of Aldi Lacura deodorant on the kitchen floor and other chroming items, leading them to believe Cesar had inhaled the deodorant before falling unconscious.
Nicola said: “I hadn’t heard of chroming before. An older boy had shown him how it was done. When the police told me what he had snorted I thought he would die. I knew the warning on the back of the can that said ‘Solvent abuse leads to instant death.'”
Caesar was later transferred to Sheffield Children’s Hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma for 48 hours. When he came out of the coma, he began to show signs of improvement, soon breathing on his own and being able to talk and walk.
After eight days in the hospital, Caesar was discharged and allowed to return home.
Nicola said, “I was so happy. When he was discharged he was almost back to normal – eating, drinking, laughing and playing. He just felt tired. We don’t know about the long-term damage, but his short-term memory is very poor. He couldn’t remember what happened. If I hadn’t heard anything that night, I would have found a dead body the next morning. I have spoken to Cesar and told him never to do anything like that again. I have thrown away everything in the house that he sprayed.”
Nicola also wants to warn other children who might be tempted to use chromium: “It’s not worth it. It might feel good, but it certainly doesn’t feel good when you’re in hospital struggling to breathe and causing pain to your parents.”
“I also want to stress the importance of parents being trained in first aid. I believe people who have children should attend this course, as it could be the difference between life and death,” she added.
