Tainted candy on Halloween night is the scariest part of the holiday for parents. Tainted fake teeth? Not so much a concern.
Well, not usually.
A 5-year-old boy in Galion, Ohio, tested positive for methamphetamine this week after trick-or-treating. But the boy said he hadn’t put anything else in his mouth besides a pair of fake vampire teeth.
The Galion Police Department said in a statement they began investigating after a report that the boy had fallen sick on Sunday. They have sent the teeth to a lab for analysis.
Julia Pence, the boy’s mother, said she rushed to the hospital after hearing he had a seizure.
“He was disoriented, he didn’t know who was who and where he was at,” Pence told CNN. “They told me that my son had methamphetamine in his urine.”
And then they asked if the boy had been trick-or-treating.
“You could tell at the hospital that he was real high from whatever he ingested,” she said. “He was really wired and kind of aggressive, had different mood swings. When we came home he was real tired, he was coming down from it.”
But before you throw out your child’s spooky Dracula accessories, know that police are calling this a rare occurrence.
“This is an oddity,” Galion Police Chief Brian Saterfield told CNN. “This is not something that happens all the time.”
He said police have not received any further reports of sick kids since the town’s trick-or-treating event Sunday afternoon.
As for tainted candy, Saterfield says it doesn’t hurt for parents to be cautious, but they should not be overly worried.
“This does not happen often,” he said. “I think parents should always be concerned, looking at the candy. Look for anything that looks out of place, if the candy bag is open or ripped, throw it away.”
Don’t Turn A Laundry Container Into A Halloween Bucket
While you are taking Halloween safety precautions, be sure to keep this one in mind. People have begun to get a lot more creative with the vessels for their Halloween candy — and some of the DIY efforts include turning empty containers of Tide Pods laundry detergent into Halloween buckets.
It might not seem like a big deal, but experts are warning that it could be dangerous.
“Detergent residue can linger, so you don’t want to reuse packaging from these products, especially for food or beverage storage,” says Doris Sullivan, associate director of product safety at Consumer Reports.
Instead, choose a store bought container meant for Halloween or decorate a tote bag for your little one to carry their candy haul.
Written by Christina Maxouris and Saeed Ahmed for CNN. Additional reporting by Simplemost staff.
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