Pesticide poisoning kills two children
As a mother here this scares the hell out of me. So many of us live in apartments and conjoined villas and it could so easily be anyone of us because so often there is a complete lack of common sense and knowledge by these cheap companies who hire people who know nothing about the chemicals they're handling. :(
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/father-of-girls-killed-in-pest...
Ajman: The father of two young girls who died of suspected pesticide poisoning earlier this month has spoken of his devastation.
“I feel that my life has died,” Habib Allah Miah, a Bangladeshi tailor, told Gulf News with tears pouring down his face.
“I used to see my two daughters running in the house, laughing, playing and their death changes every aspect of my family life, they have left an enormous emptiness.”
“All bereaved parents know that ‘nothing’,” he said, “that moment when the noise that you sometimes wish for five minutes you didn’t have in your life turns into a deafening silence. And that moment is so terrifying that you find yourself in a place you never knew existed.”
The grieving parents were holding photo albums of the girls and recalled how they were full of joy and fun. Habib Allah’s wife, Safya Akhtar, remained silent as she was in a state of shock.
“I feel that my two daughters are nearby, playing and laughing,” Habib Allah said with tears on his face.
Our life with the girls was idyllic and now it’s vanished, he said.
It is believed three-year-old Hafsa and eight-month-old Sawda inhaled fumes from pesticides that were sprayed in a neighbour’s apartment.
The grieving father told Gulf News of the final days of the girls’ lives.
“That day I went to my work just like every other day — I came back home but my daughters were still asleep, It was unusual, they used to wake up early and shower and play. They were full of activity.
“Later I went to drop my friends at the airport. My wife called and said ‘Come home now. Our daughters are not well, they are vomiting and their condition has worsened,’”
He arrived at the family home in the new industrial area of Ajman.
“I saw my daughters were in pain and not feeling well and they were moving around due to their pain.
“We did not expect that the reason would be pesticide poisoning. We rushed them to hospital and they gave them medicine and discharged them. The second day they started vomiting again and we gave them the same medicine to stop their vomiting but my elder daughter started experiencing pain in her heart, she put her hands on her heart because of the pain. Then we took them to another hospital. They did not tell us the girls had pesticide poisoning. They took the elder daughter and put her on a drip, later they removed the drips from her hand and told us she had died.”
Hafsa took her last breath at around 7pm while Sawda died about three hours later.
Habib Allah said the hospital told them they were not able to deal with the case.
“If they knew that they could not help why they did not tell us to take our daughters to another hospital and we might have saved their lives?
“I think the hospital should be questioned. We lost our daughters but they should avoid the same issue with other parents,” he said.
“Our neighbour called me 24 hours after his house was sprayed with pesticide and informed me not to let the children approach the house.”
The neighbour was not present in his apartment because the pesticide company had asked him to stay away for at least two days. Police have taken the neighbour into custody for further action and have sealed the flat pending investigations.
Blood-test is generally not done to treat nausea in cases of children unless the etiology calls for it. Before the doctors could realise that cause of nausea was something more than an upset stomach, their conditioned has worsened much. The elder one was also put on saline drip but it was too late.
Also, normal blood tests cannot find out anything more than the extent of infection by counting the leukocytes. In this case, the blood tests would have come out normal.
If you hold doctors responsible then I guess you would agree that every such case of nausea should be investigated with all internal tests and blood-work. Do you think its practical? Doctors treat on the basis of symptoms.
But no blood tests were conducted or any kind of internal check ups done, despite the severe condition of the children. However the hospital whilst maybe excused on that front should be held accountable according to this bit of info: "Habib Allah said the hospital told them they were not able to deal with the case.
“If they knew that they could not help why they did not tell us to take our daughters to another hospital and we might have saved their lives?"
So yeah..I agree with the father that they should be investigated to prevent future mishaps.
Fathima, Parents were clueless on the reason of their children's condition so couldnt communicate to the doctors. How would the doctors know that it could be a case of pesticide inhalation?
I don't think a blood-work would even indicate something like that. So, they may have treated the children with usual medicines meant for stomach trouble or nausea etc.
I don't think doctors are to be blamed.
Very saddening and frightening... The poor poor parents. Truly a horrible predicament. All their happiness and peace of mind snatched away so fast, and that too due to the negligence and callousness of others, beginning with the dangerously careless pest control company and ending with the scarily incompetent hospital staffers. My heart aches for them..
And sad as it is that it had to take a situation as grave as this, there are great lessons to be learned here. I was never aware that a neighbor's PC procedures could be so fatal. Something to be extra cautious about hereafter!
And the hospital too should be reprimanded and severely penalized. Malpractice at its worst!
My heart goes out to this poor man and his wife for the loss of his two beloved daughters.
As everyone says, this kind of careless attitude with chemicals in this country is endemic. No concern whatsoever for those that do the spraying either. In my compound the guys come round about every 3 months to spray and as my husband is a 25 yr experienced Safety Manager, I am more than aware of safety issues. I comment every single time on the fact that they are not wearing proper breathing apparatus to save their health. Last time one of them had a proper mask but the other 4 not. God help them in their future life! :(
why the authorities need an incident to wake them up??
It is not the first case, happened in Dubai/AUH to an Egyptian family too. The little girl swallowed the pesticide capsule left by the neighbour.
KR is right that monitoring and preventive measure to start at top.
Yes Mimi, I think so too.
What a callous place we live in.
My guess is many of them die young from diseases that could easily be linked to the pesticides NM. :(
What I wonder is how many of those guys who spray the stuff on a daily basis die.
Wearing a little paper mask as they do on the compound I live on, does not seem adequate protection to me.
Because this is the reality of life here . Go out to a local hardware store and see what's available on the shelf and how its stored / handled.
this is scary!
Disaster at every turn!
Hospitals negligence is totally unacceptable. Poor children breaks my heart. They couldn't diagnose it was chemical poisoning till the every end by that time it was too late.They dint diagnose at all i suppose.
Arresting the neighbor makes no sense. Get your house sprayed with pesticide and stay away.Thats the general practices here.I am not aware that I am supposed to tell my neighbors that I am doing pest control at my place.
Agree KR. What the hell would the neighbor know about pesticides? They should be arresting the owner of the company that sprayed them!
Corrective and preventive action should be taken at a higher level...not just by arresting the neighbour who probably was not much aware of the implications of pesticide fumes being inhaled.
First, there should be a state control on sale and use of specific types of pesticides. Mandatory procedures should be written and followed by personnel.
I can compare this to our radiographic testing crew who always have to work on written procedures...if there are rules for handling radioactive isotopes, then why not for poisonous chemicals? Why not barricade the whole area with sign boards and keep a vigil for some hours. Its neither expensive nor cumbersome.
I remember the other day these pest control guyz came to my house for their usual pest services and they sprayed all my house with the pesticide. The same was so strong and even my eyes started watering I immediately called their office and told them WTF is this pesticide and cleaned all the pesticide myself.
Then in their next visit they used a mild pesticide which didnt bothered me much but i think it didnt even bothered the rodents and cocokraches as well coz of its mildness...:(
These roaches were still alive and playing around in some corner after few hours of the pesticide...:(GRRrrr
I know Brit. Like I said, it scares the hell out of me. Tomorrow it could be our neighbors hiring some company to do this and our house being filled with pesticides and we would have no idea. :(
It all comes down to lack of awareness and cost. Companies hire "lackeys" who are not experienced in jobs they are required to do and do not comprehend safety or health issues.
How many times have you walked past a building site and seen the workers without safety equipment ?
Acids and similar dangerous chemicals are sold openly in shops with bottles carrying no warning labels
It just seems to be a case of incompetence all round Brit. First off the whole apartment building should have been emptied if you were going to spray pesticides in one, and secondly the hospital was completely incompetent. :(
Safety and awareness are necessary.
I recall a case in a compound I lived in. One of the children was playing near a villa that was under maintenance. He went into the garden , saw a bottle of liquid and opened the top.
Some of the liquid spilt on his shoes and leg. It was acid and burned through causing injury.