‘Terrifying experience’, mom says of edibles scare

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This article was published 11/02/2019 (2593 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — The mother of two Brandon children taken to hospital after consuming pieces of a cannabis edible is urging others to store their edibles with care, calling it a “terrifying experience.”

“Always keep it locked up, always,” the mother said, who wished to remain anonymous. “It sucks that I had to learn the hard way for this, but you always keep it locked up. Everything, any kind of medications, anything, you keep locked up so that your kids don’t get into it.”

The mother woke up on Feb. 2 to find the cabinet above the fridge where the chocolate was stored had been raided. The five-year-old had climbed up when she was asleep, found the chocolate and shared it with his two-year-old sister.

She was always very serious about making sure her children never got into something like that, she said, and kept it up high. But, he still managed to reach it.

Initially, she thought everything would be fine.

“I thought it kind of just worked as it would with an adult body — you wait for it to go through and everything is fine — but (it didn’t work that way),” she said.

At approximately 3 p.m. after consuming pieces of the chocolate bar edible, her daughter started screaming, and they suspected she was having seizures, she said, so she called 911.

Her daughter was flown to a Winnipeg intensive care unit, where she was given medication to sedate her and a CT scan.

“Her eyes weren’t responding and her brain had swelled,” the mother said. “She wasn’t expected to make it back, but she did.”

She started improving upon arrival, and the CT scan found that no brain damage was caused by the seizures, she said.

Her five-year-old son, who had also consumed pieces of the cannabis-infused chocolate, stayed at the Brandon Regional Health Centre. He vomited when he was at home, which was “his saving grace,” she said.

Both were released from hospital early last week, and they haven’t had any problems since.

No criminal charges will be laid, Brandon Police Service Staff Sgt. Brian Partridge said in an interview last week.

However, Child and Family Services (CFS) were contacted.

There won’t be any serious consequences from CFS, the mother said, and the kids won’t be taken away from her.

“They know that I care about my kids and that I would never put them in harm’s way intentionally or anything like that.”

She’s thankful her kids are OK, she said, and wants to keep other parents from going through the same situation she did.

“This is definitely the biggest learning experience I’ve ever had, even if you think you’re being safe, be 10 times safer than what you originally thought was safe,” she said.

Dr. Margaret Thompson, an emergency physician and medical director of the Manitoba, Ontario and Nunavut Poison Centre, advised parents to lock up their edibles in an interview with the Brandon Sun last week.

A child who has never been exposed to marijuana will likely have a more adverse reaction than someone who knows what to expect and understands the effects of the substance, she said. Even in a single exposure, children seem to be more susceptible.

Although consumers are free to make edibles at home, no edible products are legal for sale until the federal government passes regulations around the sale of edible and drinkable cannabis-infused products.

— Brandon Sun