Compressed air can kill: Ohio teen is dead proof

Most of us have gotten e-mails about bizarre stories that are known as urban legends.

Sometimes they’re totally bogus. Sometimes there’s a shred of truth to them, but the story is mostly exaggeration.

Recently, though, I got one that proved to be true, completely true, terribly true.

It was about a police officer in Ohio who used cans of compressed air to blow the dust off computer parts. The canned air isn’t expensive, but it isn’t cheap, $10 for a pack of three cans, so the man was a little upset when he found that his son and his friends had used all the cans, supposedly playing around, dusting off everything in sight. The officer suspected nothing sinister, though. After all, the cans just contained compressed air, right?

On the morning of March 2, the man’s wife went to wake their son for school. She found him sitting up in bed with his head drooping down. But he wouldn’t wake up. The mother at first thought he was playing around, but then she discovered that his face was pale, a small straw was sticking out of his mouth, and a can of that compressed air for cleaning computers was next to him.

The officer who wrote the e-mail that ended up in my mailbox explained that he’d never heard of kids inhaling compressed air, and he had no idea there could be any danger to it. How could inhaling air possibly be dangerous?

Now, however, he knows. He knows that his son learned about it from neighbor kids. He knows his son was told that inhaling compressed air would give him a high that lasts about 10 seconds but that it was otherwise harmless. And he knows how it kills people, how it killed his son.

It turns out those compressed air dusting cans contain much more than just compressed air. They contain a propellant, in this case a gas that is a refrigerant. The officer explained in his e-mail that the gas is heavier than air, and when people inhale it, it takes the place of oxygen in your lungs. Your heart and brain are deprived of oxygen, and in the officer’s case, it killed his son.

The man explained that there are no warning signs, no signals that you have had enough, or possibly too much. You don’t start feeling bad and decide to stop, or seek help. He described it as like Russian roulette. Inhale it once, it might not kill you, or, then again, it might, and when it does, it strikes like a bullet. You die as you are breathing it in, or within two seconds of taking the hit, the officer wrote.

You can believe what he wrote, too. We contacted the department where the officer works. He was off duty and we couldn’t reach him., but the department confirmed that his son died this way, and yes, the officer had written the e-mail. It was all real, all too real.

The e-mail, which has been circulating for a couple of months, was stunning on several levels. It was stunning to know that those cans of compressed air are far from just air. It’s stunning to learn how deadly it can be to inhale it. And it’s stunning to know that kids today will inhale almost anything to get a buzz, and some will insist until the day they die that it’s harmless, regardless of what people tell them.

Repeated reminders that it’s not worth risking your life for a 10-second buzz might be getting through. Police we spoke to said they haven’t encountered any cases of kids – they’re usually 15 and under – huffing, whether it’s hair spray or Freon or compressed air dusters. Maybe that means there isn’t much huffing going on.

Maybe there aren’t many cases because stores are careful about selling the products. Wal-Mart, for example, will card you if you try to buy the compressed air dusters. You have to be 18 to get them.

Or maybe we haven’t heard about it because no one has died around here in the past year from huffing. So maybe, instead, we should just remember the 14-year-old named Kyle who did die.

I just got this and researched this on urbanlegends.com . Apparently this is real.

Here is the email in total....

Subject: Important Read About Dust Off

Subject: Dust Off- This is a true story Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 08:09:01 -0500

First IM going to tell you a little about me and my family. My name is Jeff. I am a Police Officer for a city which is known nationwide for its crime rate. We have a lot of gangs and drugs. At one point we were # 2 in the nation in homicides per capita. I also have a police K-9 named Thor. He was certified in drugs and general duty. He retired at 3 years old because he was shot in the line of duty. He lives with us now and I still train with him because he likes it. I always liked the fact that there was no way to bring drugs into my house. Thor wouldn't allow it. He would tell on you. The reason I say this is so you understand that I know about drugs.

I have taught in schools about drugs. My wife asks all our kids at least once a week if they used any drugs. Makes them promise they wont.

I like building computers occasionally and started building a new one in February 2005. I also was working on some of my older computers. They were full of dust so on one of my trips to the computer store I bought a 3 pack of DUST OFF. Dust Off is a can of compressed air to blow dust off a computer. A few weeks later when I went to use them they were all used. I talked to my kids and my 2 sons both said they had used them on their computer and messing around with them. I yelled at them for wasting the 10 dollars I paid for them. On February 28 I went back to the computer store. They didn't have the 3 pack which I had bought on sale so I bought a single jumbo can of Dust Off. I went home and set it down beside my computer.

On March 1st I left for work at 10 PM. At 11 PM my wife went down and kissed Kyle goodnight. At 5! 30 am the next morning Kathy went downstairs to wake Kyle up for school, before she left for work. He was sitting up in bed with his legs crossed and his head leaning over. She called to him a few times to get up. He didn't move. He would sometimes tease her like this and pretend he fell back asleep.

He was never easy to get up. She went in and shook his arm. He fell over. He was pale white and had the straw from the Dust Off can coming out of his mouth. He had the new can of Dust Off in his hands. Kyle was dead.

I am a police officer and I had never heard of this. My wife is a nurse and she had never heard of this. We later found out from the coroner, after the autopsy, that only the propellant from the can of Dust off was in his system. No other drugs. Kyle had died between midnight and 1 Am.

I found out that using Dust Off is being done mostly by kids ages 9 through 15. They even have a name for it. It's called dusting. A take off from the Dust Off name. It gives them a slight high for about 10 seconds. It makes them dizzy. A boy who lives down the street from us showed Kyle how to do this about a month before. Kyle showed his best friend. Told him it was cool and it couldn't hurt you. Its just compressed air. It cant hurt you. His best friend said no.

Kyle's dead.

Kyle was wrong. It's not just compressed air. It also contains a propellant. I think its R2. Its a refrigerant like what is used in your refrigerator. It is a heavy gas. Heavier than air.

When you inhale it, it fills your lungs and keeps the good air, with oxygen, out. That's why you feel dizzy, buzzed. It decreases the oxygen to your brain, to your heart. Kyle was right. It cant hurt you. IT KILLS YOU.

The horrible part about this is there is no warning. There is no level that kills you. It's not cumulative or an overdose; it can just go randomly, terribly wrong. Roll the dice and if your number comes up you die. ITS NOT AN OVERDOSE. Its Russian roulette. You don't die later. Or not feel good and say I've had too much. You usually die as your breathing it in.

If not you die within 2 seconds of finishing "the hit." That's why the straw was still in Kyle's mouth when he died. Why his eye's were still open.

The experts want to call this huffing. The kids don't believe its huffing. As adults we tend to lump many things together. But it doesn't fit here. And that's why its more accepted. There is no chemical reaction. no strong odor. It doesn't follow the huffing signals.

Kyle complained a few days before he died of his tongue hurting. It probably did. The propellant causes frostbite. If I had only known. Its easy to say hay, its my life and I'll do what I want. But it isn't. Others are always effected. This has forever changed our family's life. I have a hole in my heart and soul that can never be fixed. The pain is so immense I cant describe it. There's nowhere to run from it. I cry all the time and I don't ever cry. I do what I'm supposed to do but I don't really care.

My kids are messed up. One wont talk about it. The other will only sleep in our room at night. And my wife, I cant even describe how bad she is taking this. I thought we were safe because of Thor. I thought we were safe because we knew about drugs and talked to our kids about them. After Kyle died another story came out. A Probation Officer went to the school system next to ours to speak with a student. While there he found a student using Dust Off in the bathroom. This student told him about another student who also had some in his locker. This is a rather affluent school system. They will tell you they don't have a drug problem there. They don't even have a dare or plus program there. So rather than tell everyone about this "new" way of getting high they found, they hid it. The probation officer told the media after Kyle's death and they, the school, then admitted to it. I know that if they would have told the media and I had heard, it wouldn't have been in my house.

We need to get this out of our homes and school computer labs.

Using Dust Off isn't new and some "professionals" do know about. It just isn't talked about much, except by the kids. They know about it.

April 2nd was 1 month since Kyle died. April 5th would have been his 15th birthday. And every weekday I catch myself sitting on the living room couch at 2:30 in the afternoon and waiting to see him get off the bus. I know Kyle is in heaven but I cant help but wonder If I died and went to Hell. Jeff

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