Oregon teenager dies after inhaling helium at party

Oregon teenager dies after inhaling helium at party

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"It got to my daughter. My daughter didn't want to do it. It was peer pressure. They put a mask up to her face. They said it would be OK. 'It's not gonna hurt you. It'll just make you laugh and talk funny.'"

Instead, she passed out and later died at a hospital, the result of an obstruction in a blood vessel caused by inhaling helium from a pressurized tank.

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Inhaling helium is a popular gag usually good for laughs at parties. There has always been rumors passed around that it is dangerous and can kill you, but no one telling us that rumor had been able to point out a specific incident. Well, here it is!

It is rare but it happens. I have breathed helium, not from a tank but from balloons. Nothing bad has ever happened to me or any others I've known but I always heard rumors it can be dangerous.

But the death exposes the rare but real dangers of inhaling helium, especially from a pressurized tank.

Dr. Mark Morocco, associate professor of emergency medicine at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles, said what happens is similar to when a scuba diver surfaces too quickly. A gas bubble gets into the bloodstream, perhaps through some kind of tear in a blood vessel, and can block blood flow to the brain, causing a stroke.

Be forwarned

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Helium in an of itself is harmless -- the lack of oxygen can be fatal. Apparently here the cause of death was mechanical. A mask attached to a pressurized tank and held tightly to the face this would inflate the lungs like a balloon most likely rupturing capillaries and blood vessels forcing the gas into the blood stream and causing a blockage in the heart or brain.

Could happen if you used any unregulated gas supply -- like the air hose at the gas station. The reason for using Helium in the suicide "debreathers" is that it is "not oxygen" and it is easily and untraceabley available at party stores. It is also hard to trace forensically. Helium is an inert gas like krypton neon argon or xenon -- nitrogen is also non reactive and makes up 78% of the atmosphere. It is just that helium is so easy to get the others not so much.

I did not know that this is a new party drug. The only way to get "high" with helium, is through oxygen deprivation. That is never a good thing - it tends to damage important tissue. *snip*
Fun Fact - the reason for the Donald Duck effect is that the gas is less dense than air and the vocal cords will change their vibration.

playing around with chemicals should be banned. one can never know if people are hypersensitive to certain substances. there's a big risk.

When you eat 10 pounds of Sodium Chloride you will die as well.

Now what .. ban all table salt ?

Stupid people will manage to kill themselves no matter what, nothing to see here.

reply to post by spyder550


You prettymuch summed up all the points I was going to make. Anyone that has learned 5th grade biology should know breathing in anything but air is not good for you....

The pressurized tank just compounds the risk really. People used to breath in butane lighters to get high in my generation, if they tried that from a butane tank though, there would have been a lot of deaths lol.

reply to post by jamsession


Sure, lets add even more useless laws to make more money to the prison industrial complex. Brilliant idea!

Or better yet, invent a liscence system for helium! Another worthless piece of paper, 4 years of college needed! Even better!

You can breath a rich enough oxygen ratio to kill you - you can drink enough water to kill you. Everything will kill you some how or other. The only way out of it is through rational sane education.

Sometimes Darwin wins.

i should've added that access to certain chemicals for young ppl to mess around with in parties should not be that easy as well. didn't foresee i'd be flamed to death for my opinion.

Originally posted by TKDRL
Anyone that has learned 5th grade biology should know breathing in anything but air is not good for you....

and i had given you a star for this line. people will not listen as long as inhaling helium is fun in that it makes your voice sound like donald duck. there should be sanctions that is.

Most people can inhale helium with little side effects. Moderation or common sense should be observed. There have probably been kids that got brain damage from it throughout history and there have probably also been deaths but people didn't exactly know why the death occurred. If something else was happening at the same time, like drinking or drugs, the blame will usually be put on that because of known reactions to those kind of things. Sometimes combinations of different things kill also.

My heart goes out to the family at this tragic time.

This is the first death I'v heard that has been caused by inhaling helium. But this is far from the 1st time I'v heard of sever problems caused because of inhaling pressurized helium from a tank. I have visited Ibiza several times and been a victim of nausea, sickness and the sense of me not been able to breath because i have inhaled helium through a pressurized tank, I'v also seen many people become victim to this, people who take no drugs and only inhale the helium or laughing gas to try the legal substance, they still have the side effects, nausea/sickness and cant breath.

This is a terrible story, and i hope it brings more awareness as well as been able to see why it only causes this effect through inhaling the substance through a pressurized tank.

Its awful that the only time things change, is when something tragic happens. Again, my heart goes out to the family and friends

Originally posted by jamsession
i should've added that access to certain chemicals for young ppl to mess around with in parties should not be that easy as well. didn't foresee i'd be flamed to death for my opinion.

Originally posted by TKDRL
Anyone that has learned 5th grade biology should know breathing in anything but air is not good for you....

and i had given you a star for this line. people will not listen as long as inhaling helium is fun in that it makes your voice sound like donald duck. there should be sanctions that is.

edit on 23-2-2012 by jamsession because: (no reason given)

I think all that needs to happen, is the helium/laughing gas needs to be inhaled out of something other than a pressurized tank - though, im not an expert and there is probably allot more to it than the substance only causing nausea/sickness through pressurized tank. . Although, inhaling helium through a balloon has never caused these said effects, only the tank - So personally, I do think this may have something to do with it.

Helium doesnt needs regulating, nor does laughing gas.

reply to post by jamsession


Thanks for contributing to this thread. I posted this so that others can be warned and take appropriate caution or responsibility, at least not coerce their friends into trying it if they are reluctant. I am opposed to laying out sanctions or passing a new law any time they just want the people to listen. Still, I thank you for your comments. -Eron

Originally posted by jamsession
playing around with chemicals should be banned. one can never know if people are hypersensitive to certain substances. there's a big risk.

ummm...WHAT!?!?!
Did you just advocate the abolishment of chemistry? I hope you're trolling. If not, I have some Dihydrogen Monoxide you can splash. all. over. your. face.

reply to post by Erongaricuaro


Thanks for the forewarning. It's not like only 3 people died in 2010 from inhaling helium. Oh wait, only 3 people did die.

To set up a foundation for helium intoxication...that's all they could come up with??

Originally posted by jamsession
i should've added that access to certain chemicals for young ppl to mess around with in parties should not be that easy as well. didn't foresee i'd be flamed to death for my opinion.

Originally posted by TKDRL
Anyone that has learned 5th grade biology should know breathing in anything but air is not good for you....

and i had given you a star for this line. people will not listen as long as inhaling helium is fun in that it makes your voice sound like donald duck. there should be sanctions that is.

edit on 23-2-2012 by jamsession because: (no reason given)

if you think inhaling helium is fun, then you HAVE to try nitrous oxide

One of my best friends killed himself my junior year of high school by strapping a helium mask to his face and breathing in deeply. Pure helium is becoming more and more popular because it's so easy to get and the high is supposed to be safe and fun.

Technically speaking, it wouldn't be a bad way to go if you were suffocated by it. Probably die in a hallucination of color, but that's just a theory...

Unfortunately these things happen, and have happened quite often lately.
Even one of our more outrageous chefs was lambasted quite recently for having his dinner party guests inhale something akin to a hookah full of the stuff on TV, this was in light of a death over this side of the pond.

reply to post by jamsession


"shouldn't have easy access to certain chemicals to mess around with at parties..." so ban helium tanks for filling up balloons at kids parties?!?! Come on now, I have a tank of helium in my office for birthdays and what not. Put the focus on personal responsibility... NOT A NANNY STATE. Come on. LITERALLY 3 kids died last year... cautionary tale, yes. But if back in the day Grog didn't get eat that berry and get sick no one would know to not eat the berry. And kids know...don't suck in helium because you might pass out or die...she still did it...its called 'risk taking'...it happens. Its sad that she died though. I cant imagine how those kids, parents, etc feel.

BUT
...the parent's quote blaming 'peer pressure' is copping to the fact that your child was unable to stand up for themselves and bowed to peer pressure. Which states A) daughter was weak willed and a conformist...aka SHEEPLE and B) The parent did a poor job of 'parenting'.

reply to post by jamsession


Don't take anything I say as flaming, was a tongue in cheek kind of thing. Kinda hard to clarify on the internet though, in real life the halfcocked sideways smile gives it away, on forums not so much.

But seriously, as you can tell I am of the opinion that adding more laws or regulations is not really a good answer to most things. I think we have far too many as it is, just serving as a revenue vacume, but getting into all that would derail the topic a bit I think