Friday 27 April 2012

The Dangers of Everyday Items

When you have an autistic child, you cannot "switch off", even for a moment. The second you take your eye off the ball, could be the exact time that your child chooses to do something dangerous.

My son does not see the potential danger in things that are obvious to other children his age. Last night he was running around  a lot before he went to bed and was all hot and sweaty, so unbeknown to me, he went into the freezer and grabbed a small ice-pack, the type you put in kids lunchboxes. His dad put him up to bed and didn't see any problem in him having the ice pack in the bed with him to cool him down.

15 minutes later, and my daughter was frantically running down the stairs and shouting that her brother had bitten into the (now liquid) ice pack and swallowed some of the contents. The pack had the words "Do not swallow" printed on the front, so I was really worried that my son had been poisoned.

After getting him to drink a glass of milk, and scouring the internet for information, I found the website of the ice pack manufacturer, which thankfully stated that the ice pack contained no toxic ingredients, as they realised that accidents to happen, and children sometimes ingest the contents.

Emergency averted.

Seriously, you have to take health and safety to a whole new level when you have a child with no sense of danger.

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