St. Augustine, FL (WJAX/CBS) - A Florida mom’s Facebook post is going viral after she posted a warning about a trending treat.
Dragon Breath is a cereal-like treat that is sold at malls across the country, including Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem and Four Seasons Town Centre in Greensboro.
It’s coated in liquid nitrogen, which makes it look like you're breathing smoke out of your mouth and nose after eating it. Racheal Richard McKenny said her son has very mild asthma and started having trouble breathing shortly after eating the treat.
“Around 20 minutes in, the cough became really consistent. By the time we passed the Palencia subdivision, he was coughing so bad that he was having trouble catching his breath,” she said on Facebook. “We knew he couldn't’t breathe, and we knew that we couldn't’t get him to the hospital in time.”
McKenny said they quickly pulled into a fire station, where EMTs immediately started Johnny on an albuterol treatment and hooked him up to an IV while preparing him for transport. “The nebulizer was not improving his breathing at all and, by the time they got him loaded into the ambulance, he needed a shot of epinephrine,” she said. “Johnny had a second breathing treatment and steroid on the way to the hospital.”
WFMY News 2's Hannah Brewer spoke with a pediatrician who says breathing in any type of chemical can trigger asthma symptoms.
"In kids with asthma their airways are hyper reactive and so sometimes if they breathe in chemicals it can cause the muscles in their airways to constrict and make it harder for them to breath," says Dr. Lia Erickson with Novant Health Waughtown Pediatrics.
Our CBS sister station WJAX took concerns to Dr. Sunil Joshi of Family Allergy Asthma Consultants in Jacksonville who said even people who don’t have asthma could have side effects from the nitrogen in the treat.
“Even if you don’t have asthma it can be very, very inflammatory or irritating to the airway and your esophagus and your stomach, all of that,” he said. He also said exposure to the nitrogen can cause serious burns. A manager of the kiosk at the Florida mall said a notice at the cash register was updated to include an allergy and asthma warning after Johnny’s reaction.
The business believes it was an isolated incident and that several customers with asthma who ate Dragon’s Breath did not have a reaction.
McKenny posted the warning on Facebook in hopes sharing Johnny’s experience prevents this from happening to any other family.