Second grader treated for alcohol poisoning after drinking hand sanitizer

Don't drink this, kids!

A Virginia second grader was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning after downing hand sanitizer at school.

Christy Grant, 7, told her father that a classmate had dared her to drink the sanitizer, and she took the challenge. And her father, Glen, wants to know where the teacher was to prevent this from happening.

“Under supervision, this would have never happened,” Glen told Washington DC’s Fox-5.

Glen’s fiance, Ashley Washington, added, “They’re telling me it was a couple of pumps. Maybe one or two. The doctor’s telling me there’s no way that it was two pumps and her blood alcohol is that high.”

Most commercial hand sanitizers are approximately 70% alcohol, and more and more schools nationwide provide students with access to hand sanitizer in the classroom to use before and after lunch period and after bathroom breaks. But teachers don’t usually encourage children to drink it.

Hospital reports indicated that Christy had alcohol poisoning, and that she was unconscious and unresponsive as she was taken away in an ambulance.

Glen said he had “faith” in the school that his daughter would “be properly supervised” and that school staff let him down, and that nobody from the school has explained to him what happened.

Washington stated that her “biggest issue” is that the sanitizer shouldn’t be accessible to students, and Glen agreed, saying the kids “taste, they touch out of curiosity.”

He puts the blame solely on Christy’s teacher, however, saying, “If [the teacher is] not there to watch them and protect them, you’re not doing your job. You don’t need to be around children. Period.”

Glen says he is going to pull Christy out of her current Neabsco Elementary School in Dale City and start sending her to a different school — presumably one that keeps hand sanitizer under lock and key.