4-Year-Old Girl Found with BAC of .29 After Ethanol Exposure at School, Say Parents

A family in Alabama wants to know how their 4-year-old daughter drank so much alcohol at school that she had to stay in the intensive care unit for two days.

The ages of Mary and Albert Singleton were not given, but they talked to WALA about the case of their 4-year-old daughter. On Monday, Mary Singleton picked up her daughter from Mobile County Public Schools, the school this girl went to. According to WALA, school officials called the Singletons to let them know about their daughter’s situation two minutes before the end of the school day.

The mother of one girl told WALA that her daughter was limp when she got to the school nurse’s office.

“She was slobbering at the mouth and heavy,” Mary Singleton told WALA about her daughter. “The teacher handed her to me and said we probably needed to take her to the ER.”

What a scared mom did: she rushed her daughter to the hospital, where they did a test report and took her in. According to WALA, the tests that the couple gave the station showed that the 4-year-old had a blood alcohol level of.29, which is very high and can be dangerous.

Alcohol that the girl had in her body was ethyl alcohol, or ethanol. You can find ethanol in hand sanitizer, food packaging, and some skin care and beauty items. Ethanol is the same type of alcohol that is found in boozy drinks. It is also often used as a solvent.

The girl was taken care of in the ICU for two days and then was sent home on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, WALA said it was still not clear what the girl ate or how she got to it. Mobile County Public Schools did not say anything when they were asked to.

Even though no charges have been brought yet, WALA said that the Prichard Police are looking into what happened. WALA was told by the Prichard Police that they might give the case to the Child Advocacy Center.

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