Day in the life of a Poison Center: 1-2pm

An ER called regarding two adult patients who presented with bluish tinged skin (cyanosis). They had made their own beef jerky at home and had added 5 times too much sodium nitrate as a preservative.
A preschool teacher would like to have someone from IPC to come out and give a poison prevention lecture to the children (IPC’s public education manager helped her out: ipcadmin@team-iha.org).
A 4 year old got into an older sibling’s Tegretol four hours before calling the IPC. The child is confused and can’t walk straight.
A 2 year old had a finger lick of hair relaxer.
An ER called regarding a patient who had super glued her eye shut: she was working on her computer and had dry eyes; she reached for her eye drops she always keeps on her desk and instilled a few drops into her right eye. Unfortunately, she had instead grabbed a tube of super glue she had used the day before to repair a chip on the desk.
A 21 month old got into a bottle of Tylenol Infant drops and ingested approximately ¼ of the bottle.
A caller ate a sandwich with lunchmeat and only after eating it, realized the meat expired 7 months ago.
911 conferenced in a caller whose child had accidentally taken a small swallow of bleach that had been stored in a drinking cup. IPC reassured 911 dispatcher and the patient that no ambulance was needed.
An adult male has a car for sale; he decided to siphon out some gas to save money and swallowed a mouthful.
An adult male has been taking Vicodin and Xanax at the same time for the last 2 days. He just noticed the warning label on the bottle advising not to take both at the same time.
Mom called because her 18 year old was playing football in the backyard with his friends while an exterminator was spraying the trees with a pesticide. The boys became nauseated and developed runny noses.
A welder who works with galvanized steel has developed mild flu like symptoms and was wondering if it could be related to his work.
A frantic mother brought her child to ER because she had eaten both her and her sister’s chewable vitamin. This is not expected to cause any toxicity at all, and had she called the poison center first she would have avoided a costly unnecessary hospital visit and several hours in the waiting room.

***IPC specialists also made 15 calls to homes and hospitals to follow up on the clinical course of patients we had been previously consulted on.

This is just one hour, read the rest of the cases from the 24 hour day (links below). Prevention is priceless! Click here for free online poison prevention education course and/or educational materials.

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 12am-7am

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 7am-8am

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 8am-9am

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 9am-10am

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 10am-11am

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 11am-12pm

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 12pm-1pm

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 1-2pm

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 2pm-3pm

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 3pm-4pm

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 4pm-5pm

Day in the life of a Poison Center: 5pm-6pm