news 10 kids at Ark. daycare drink windshield wiper fluid mistaken for Kool-Aid

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10 kids at Ark. daycare drink windshield wiper fluid mistaken for Kool-Aid

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Fri Mar 13, 10:45 AM


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By Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Ten children drank windshield wiper fluid after a staff member at an Arkansas daycare mistakenly put the liquid in a refrigerator thinking it was Kool-Aid and it was later served, hospital officials said Friday.
Doctors estimate the children, ages two to seven, each drank about 30 millilitres of the fluid late Thursday afternoon before realizing it tasted wrong, said Laura James, a pediatric pharmacologist and toxicologist at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock.
Only one child remained hospitalized Friday morning, after blood samples showed "measurable levels" of methanol, a highly toxic alcohol that can induce comas and cause blindness, officials said.
"All we know was that the individual at the daycare had recently shopped and had come back to the daycare with a lot of different products," James told The Associated Press. "This product was mistakenly grabbed and thought to be Kool-Aid and put in the refrigerator."
Neither James nor officials at the state Department of Human Service could immediately name the daycare in the community of Scott, about 25 kilometres east of Little Rock. DHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said investigators planned to visit the daycare Friday.
"It has not been reported to us yet," Munsell said Friday morning. "Either it happened and they didn't report as they should have ... or it happened after business hours."
The children all were examined by doctors at the hospital and the day care provided a sample of the windshield wiper fluid for laboratory testing, James said.
The toxicologist warned that many antifreeze or windshield wiper solutions have bright colours, which children can mistake for fruit drinks.
"I think the take-home message is not to have these products in the kitchen or where you're doing any kind of food preparation," she said.