Young children across the nation are starting to experiment in huffing freon. I know all you parents out there are thinking "no way not my child!" well you are wrong. A 15 year old boy was about 3 months away from his 16th birthday that boy's name was Charles Gray. His mother Mona Casey was shocked when she heard about her son's death from huffing freon out of an air conditioner. Mona says "I thought I was hip on everything" she did not believe that people actually were huffing stuff still. Since Mona's son has died she has been on a mission to prevent such tragedies from happening to anybody else. Mona has founded an organization called UPROAR (united parents to restrict open access to refrigerant) and this organization has worked with the public to educate the general public about the dangers of huffing refrigerant.
Huffing freon is extremely dangerous and has many side fatal side effects. When somebody huff's freon they get a high because of the harmful chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons in the refrigerant. Some cases has even been shown that people have experienced "sudden death syndrome" just from huffing there first time. What the kids are doing is putting a plastic bag over there head while they take the copper valve off the line set which is connected to your outdoor condenser unit and huff the poisonous gas until they get high. Two major side effects of huffing freon are memory loss and heat complications. People have even had heart attacks from huffing freon from long term use. Refrigerant poisoning according to UMMC: "Refrigerant poisoning and exposure symptoms include throat swelling, difficulty breathing, severe throat pain, loss of vision, burning of the eyes, nose, lips and tongue, burns of the esophagus, vomiting blood, blood in the stool, severe abdominal pain, abnormal heart rhythm and circulatory collapse. Death is possible. Emergency medical care is required. Outcome after refrigerant poisoning depends on how severe the poisoning was, and how fast medical help began. Irreversible brain damage and severe lung damage can result."
What is more disturbing about this is that huffing freon is becoming a growing trend. A study from NIDA found that since 2002, inhalant abuse among eighth-graders has increased by 7.7 percent. When the Texas commission on alcohol and drug abuse examined 144 deaths certificates involving the use of inhalants, it found that Freon was mentioned the most often which was 51 deaths and 42% of those deaths involved minors. This was from an article in IAPMO magazine. What Mona is working towards is having it mandatory in the HVAC industry to start putting on a safety mechanism where the valves are located on the condenser so that you have to use a key to unlock the valve access.
Even if this small lock can save one life it is worth the cost. I believe that eventually we will have this as a mandatory precautionary step whenever a new installation is done. Along with a permit being pulled this will be another code enforcement which is really just a safety precaution. We at Dial One Sonshine are starting to implement this into our systems and making sure we offering these locks to every customer to make sure they understand the dangers of huffing Freon especially with younger children. Let me leave you with this shocking statistic...1 in 5 children in the US will abuse inhalants by eighth grade. So please everybody if you have any questions or you would like to have a lock installed on your condenser please call us @ 1-800-427-4909. Or email us at dialonesonshine@sbcglobal.net
