• Teenage girl dies after inhaling helium at party
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[release]EAGLE POINT, Ore. — Last weekend, 14-year-old Ashley Long told her parents she was going to a slumber party. But instead of spending the night watching videos and eating popcorn two blocks away, she piled into a car with a bunch of her friends and rode to a condo in Medford, Ore., where police say the big sister of one of her friends was throwing a party with booze and marijuana. After drinking on the drive, and downing more drinks in the condo, it came time for Ashley to take her turn on a tank of helium that everyone else was inhaling to make their voices sound funny. "That helium tank got going around," said Ashley's stepfather, Justin Earp, who learned what happened from talking to Ashley's friends at the party. "It got to my daughter. My daughter didn't want to do it. It was peer pressure. They put a mask up to her face. They said it would be OK. `It's not gonna hurt you. It'll just make you laugh and talk funny.'" Instead, she passed out and later died at a hospital, the result of an obstruction in a blood vessel caused by inhaling helium from a pressurized tank. It's a common party trick — someone sucks in helium to give their voice a cartoon character sound. But the death exposes the rare but real dangers of inhaling helium, especially from a pressurized tank. Dr. Mark Morocco, associate professor of emergency medicine at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles, said what happens is similar to when a scuba diver surfaces too quickly. A gas bubble gets into the bloodstream, perhaps through some kind of tear in a blood vessel, and can block blood flow to the brain, causing a stroke. The gas is also commonly seen in suicide kits — mail-order hoods sold out of Oregon and elsewhere that can be attached to a helium tank by people who want to kill themselves. In those cases, the helium crowds out the oxygen, asphyxiating a person. Death from inhaling helium is so rare that the American Association Poison Control Centers lumps it in with other gases, such as methane and propane. Only three deaths were recorded in 2010, said spokeswoman Loreeta Canton. It's important to remind kids that ingesting any substance — for the sake of getting high or just changing their voices — can be dangerous, said Frank Pegueros, executive director of DARE, Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Pegueros said the first defense is for parents to tell their kids about the dangers of certain substances. He said kids need to also ask themselves whether going along with the crowd at a party is worth it. "Peer pressure is a very potent force," he said. "We've all gone through it growing up." "It's getting somebody to pause and think and evaluate the situation and determine, is this something that's going to have a bad consequence," he said. Police have arrested 27-year-old Katherine McAloon, who lived in the condo, on charges of providing alcohol and marijuana to minors. Four men who were at the party have been questioned by police, but have not been charged, said Medford Police Lt. Mike Budreau. More charges may be filed after police turn over their evidence to the district attorney. Ashley was a goofy, nerdy eighth-grader who struggled with her weight, was just starting to notice boys, got top grades in school, had posters of Justin Bieber all over her room and wanted to grow up to be a marine biologist, said her mom, Loriann Earp. The family moved from Grants Pass, Ore., to Eagle Point about a year ago, and Ashley had just gotten over the difficulty of adjusting to eighth grade in a new school. Justin Earp said the kids had four wine coolers each in the car, and four mixed drinks at the condo, before they started passing around the helium. Police said it was an 8-gallon canister, the kind you can buy at many stores. The kids were taking hits directly from the tank. When Ashley passed out, someone tried CPR. Then they called 911. Paramedics tried to revive her and took her to the hospital. "About 11:30 we got a phone call from police saying they were doing CPR on our daughter," said Justin Earp. At the hospital, they were told that Ashley had died. Her family has set up a foundation, Ashley's Hope, to spread the word about the dangers of inhaling helium. Loriann Earp feels like her daughter was stolen from her. "My whole chest is collapsed and my heart is broken," she said through sobs. "I don't understand." ___[/release] [URL="http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20120222/US.Helium.Death/?cid=hero_media"][IMG]http://gmkfreelogos.com/logos/V/img/Valve_source_engine.gif[/IMG][/URL] [img]http://quimica2011.fcq.unc.edu.ar/_/rsrc/1312306322701/-que-se-conmemora-en-el-ano-de-la-quimica/Nobel-prize.gif?height=100&width=150[/img]
Helium? who inhales that at a party?
[QUOTE=Scrimp;34833916]Helium? who inhales that at a party?[/QUOTE] [quote]....to make their voices sound funny...[/quote]
[QUOTE=Scrimp;34833916]Helium? who inhales that at a party?[/QUOTE] You know, it's that thing you see at tv when they inhale into those kid balloons and they get really high pitched voice, that's helium, I guess they didn't know the risk.
[QUOTE=Scrimp;34833916]Helium? who inhales that at a party?[/QUOTE] Guess you didn't read the article. Apparently the kid did, also a lot of people inhale helium to be funny and have a cartoon voice. The issue is, inhaling helium from a balloon and pressurized tank are two different things.
[QUOTE=Scrimp;34833916]Helium? who inhales that at a party?[/QUOTE] fitting avatar for your own post
Hey i rated funny, not winner
[QUOTE] Helium ( /ˈhiːliəm/ hee-lee-əm) is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling and melting points are the lowest among the elements and it exists only as a gas except in extreme conditions. Helium is the second lightest element and is the second most abundant element in the observable universe, being present at about 24% of the total elemental mass, which is more than 12 times the mass of all the heavier elements combined. Its abundance is similar to this figure in our own Sun and in Jupiter. This is due to the very high binding energy (per nucleon) of helium-4 with respect to the next three elements after helium. This helium-4 binding energy also accounts for its commonality as a product in both nuclear fusion and radioactive decay. Most helium in the universe is helium-4, and is believed to have been formed during the Big Bang. Some new helium is being created currently as a result of the nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars. Helium is named for the Greek God of the Sun, Helios. It was first detected as an unknown yellow spectral line signature in sunlight during a solar eclipse in 1868 by French astronomer Jules Janssen. Janssen is jointly credited with detecting the element along with Norman Lockyer during the solar eclipse of 1868, and Lockyer was the first to propose that the line was due to a new element, which he named. The formal discovery of the element was made in 1895 by two Swedish chemists, Per Teodor Cleve and Nils Abraham Langlet, who found helium emanating from the uranium ore cleveite. In 1903, large reserves of helium were found in natural gas fields in parts of the United States, which is by far the largest supplier of the gas today. Helium is used in cryogenics (its largest single use, absorbing about a quarter of production), particularly in the cooling of superconducting magnets, with the main commercial application being in MRI scanners. Helium's other industrial uses—as a pressurizing and purge gas, as a protective atmosphere for arc welding and in processes such as growing crystals to make silicon wafers—account for half of the gas produced. A well-known but minor use is as a lifting gas in balloons and airships.[2] As with any gas with differing density from air, inhaling a small volume of helium temporarily changes the timbre and quality of the human voice. In scientific research, the behavior of the two fluid phases of helium-4 (helium I and helium II), is important to researchers studying quantum mechanics (in particular the property of superfluidity) and to those looking at the phenomena, such as superconductivity, that temperatures near absolute zero produce in matter. On Earth it is thus relatively rare—0.00052% by volume in the atmosphere. Most terrestrial helium present today is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements (thorium and uranium), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei. This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation. [/QUOTE] -Wikipedia
lol why would you buy an 8 gallon canister of helium when you could get a score for that price (which isnt likely to clot your brain into having a stroke) waste of money, and a waste of a life
Shitty way to die.
[QUOTE=MR-X;34833971]Guess you didn't read the article. Apparently the kid did, also a lot of people inhale helium to be funny and have a cartoon voice. The issue is, inhaling helium from a balloon and pressurized tank are two different things.[/QUOTE] I feel like it was more of a comment on how weird it is for kids to 'do helium' at a party like that. Usually it's NO2, or whippets (at their age anyway). It sucks, but this is why you're supposed to put ANY gas you do into a balloon first instead of doing it directly from a pressurized container, it's just much, much safer.
[QUOTE=Bobie;34834137]lol why would you buy an 8 gallon canister of helium when you could get a score for that price (which isnt likely to clot your brain into having a stroke) waste of money, and a waste of a life[/QUOTE] darwinism
She went out on a high note.
now iv heard of inhaling nitrous-oxide at partys, but helium? wat?
I guess you could say she was, high as a balloon [video=youtube;6zXDo4dL7SU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXDo4dL7SU&feature=related[/video] [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Meme" - verynicelady))[/highlight]
You're supposed to fill the balloon, then inhale it from the balloon to get around this.
smoke weed everyday
She died at 14. :( Why the fuck is this funny
[QUOTE=geogzm;34834156]She went out on a high note.[/QUOTE] That's the greatest pun in months. Good job. I didn't realise helium could directly destroy a blood vessel like that, i thought she would be allergic.
I've never been to a party where people inhale helium, I thought that was something 8 year olds do.
Helium - The High Pitched Killer
Nothing to do with it being Helium, retards used a pressurized tank which forced the air into the blood vessels causing an obstruction.
[quote]My daughter didn't want to do it. It was peer pressure.[/quote] The mother just knows this, of course. :rolleyes:
I heard we are running low on Helium and these people are wasting it making their voice high pitched. Sigh...should be going into useless balloons.
[QUOTE=Mad Chatter;34834702]Helium - The High Pitched Killer[/QUOTE] [highlight]Are our children being massacred by athiest government agents via helium? More at 11.[/highlight]
You know you're a weeaboo if...
[QUOTE=Apache249;34834840]The mother just knows this, of course. :rolleyes:[/QUOTE] if she was willing to go to a party and drink i highly doubt she was peer pressured into inhaling helium, unless she was of course peer pressured into going to the party in the first place
[QUOTE=Gareth;34834889]if she was willing to go to a party and drink i highly doubt she was peer pressured into inhaling helium, unless she was of course peer pressured into going to the party in the first place[/QUOTE] they forcibly put a mask on her face
I'll be looking forward to the murder charges on the people who forced the mask on her.
I bet the party was for deviantart members.
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