ALTAMONT, Duchesne County — On Sunday afternoon Neddy Street, 37, was hospitalized in critical condition after being exposed to dangerous amounts of bleach.
A little before 2:30 p.m., Street was using Clorox bleach to clean their kitchen floor, according to her husband, Cody Street. She accidentally spilled the bottle on the floor, and the fumes quickly engulfed the room.
Cody Street immediately started opening windows to try to ventilate the room and get water on the floor to dilute it, while his wife tried to clean up the product.
"The smell was so strong that my dogs started gagging on it," said Cody Street, adding that he then left the room to let the dogs outside. "I wasn’t gone for more than two minutes but when I came back in [Neddy] was lying on the ground."
Cody Street called 9-11 and began CPR. His wife was taken by medical helicopter to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, having to breathe through a respirator and drifting in and out of consciousness. On Monday night, Cody Street could, "still taste the bleach and my eyes are still one fire."
Neddy Street was released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon, though she was still in the recovery process.
Cody Street expressed concerns that bleach is more dangerous than people are led to believe.
"I don’t think that bleach is safe for anybody to use. It’s a dangerous chemical. I don’t think they should sell it over the counter. If that would have been a little kid … I don’t even want to imagine what it would do to a little kid."
Bleach is a common household item, and also the number one cause of accidental poisoning in the United States. According to the American Associated of Poison Control Centers there were 38,797 cases of bleach poisoning — two of them fatal — reported in 2013. The fumes can cause irritation and swelling of the throat, and if mixed with other chemicals such as ammonia produces chlorine gas — which was used as a weapon in the First World War.
Like most household cleaning products, bleach isn’t strictly regulated by government agencies. Companies who make the products don’t have to give out their full ingredients lists, only having to list none-specific warning labels on their products. This has led to many potentially deadly products still being available for sale without extensive warning of their full effects.
Slate recently ran a story on the paint strippers, which contain the dangerous chemical methylene chloride — still a major ingredient despite being known to cause rapid death from high concentration of fumes since the 1940’s according to the article. The paint strippers are still widely sold in stores in the United States despite being illegal in the European Union.
And every year thousands of children are harmed after ingesting colorful laundry and dish soap packets — 11,862 in 2014 according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Standardized warning labels on these products are voluntary, not mandatory, according to the New York Times.
The examples above point to the importance of taking precautions when using cleaning chemicals, even ones that seem safe.
If you or someone you know is exposed to harmful chemicals, immediately call emergency personnel or a poison control center, such as the University of Utah Poison Control Center.
Freeman Stevenson is a staff writer for DeseretNews.com