Carter County student goes to hospital with adverse vape reaction

A Carter County ambulance (Carter County Times photo)

An ambulance took a student from East Carter High School in Grayson to Kings Daughters Medical Center in Ashland Thursday after the student had an adverse reaction to an electronic cigarette, Carter County school officials said. They said the student was being treated for non-life threatening symptoms, and school administrators and law enforcement were investigating the incident while students were being asked to stay in their classrooms, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

The student lost consciousness but "didn't appear to suffer any lasting harm," reports Jeremy Wells of the Carter County Times, paraphrasing Supt. Paul Green. He told the Times that vaping “is a huge issue, not just for Carter County Schools, but schools all across the state. . . . What they don’t understand is that while there are perhaps some of these  aren’t as harmful as others – though they’re all harmful – but a lot of times kids don’t know what’s in these.”

Wells reports, "That became an issue on Thursday when the students who had the vape got rid of it, fearing punishment, and medical personnel had to wait on toxicology reports to determine what the student was in fact reacting to."

Green said, “The first thing they [the first responders] want to know is what was in it. Because they don’t know how to treat a student, or anybody, if they don’t know what they’ve actually consumed or inhaled. So, it’s a scary situation where we’re glad that today didn’t end in anything worse, but we want to make sure we continue to work hard with everybody to prevent this from happening in the future. . . . We’re still trying to find out exactly what caused that adverse reaction.”

The school district issued a statement saying, “The safety of our students is of the utmost importance across the district. We ask that parents and guardians discuss the dangers of vaping with their children.”