Hospital saves girl who drank toxic fat remover

Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot warned parents that they should never transfer cleaning fluids to “innocent-looking bottles."

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Cooking oil 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Cooking oil 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The school vacation began only a few days ago, and already a seven-old-girl drank a glass of industrial fat remover that had been stored in a mineral water bottle in the home and poured a cup for her cousin.
The girl immediately suffered significant chemical burns in her esophagus and stomach, but she managed to stop her cousin from drinking his cup of poison when she realized it was not juice.
Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot warned parents on Thursday that they should never transfer cleaning fluids to “innocent-looking bottles.
The damage that is liable to happen could endanger life, and the amount of suffering is huge.”
The girl, who lives in the South, was rushed to Kaplan after swallowing the liquid fat remover and admitted a week ago in serious condition.
She underwent a gastroscopy that showed serious internal chemical burns.
She was hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit, where a food tube was connected directly to her stomach so she could receive food and water for two weeks without it going through her damaged esophagus. Under this care, she improved and was out of danger. She was fortunate that the acidic material had not burned a hole in her esophagus.
The girl’s mother said the girl was with her brother at her aunt’s home and went to the kitchen to take a drink.
She and her little cousin saw a bottle of “mineral water” containing a material the color of diluted raspberry syrup. She poured it into two cups and started to drink it but noticed a terrible taste.
Her cousin almost drank it as well, but she managed to prevent him from doing so.
Dr. Michal Korey, head of the pediatric gastroenterology unit at Kaplan said fat remover is extremely poisonous and can kill. “The girl arrived with burns on her mouth and stomach pains.”
Treatment was carried out under general anesthesia.
Such accidents can be prevented entirely by locking cleaning products and other chemicals and keeping them out of the reach of children.
If such an event occurs, the child must be taken immediately to a hospital emergency room.
Now the child is attached to a food tube, said the mother, “and we feel we are in safe hands,” her mother said.