When Ally Langdon of Australia spoke with a mother and father who had to make the difficult choice to end the life of the small girl they had given birth to just 13 years prior, she was unable to conceal the anguish that was brewing within of them.
Langdon, a mother as well, found it difficult to contain her sorrow when the young girl passed away after succumbing to a viral fad known as chroming.
During their appearance on A Current Affair with host Ally Langdon, Andrea and Paul Haynes related how their 13-year-old daughter Esra Haynes passed away as a result of engaging in chroming, a social media craze that involves breathing harmful chemicals through the nose or mouth in order to become euphoric.
Esra, a young athlete who raced BMX bikes with her brothers and guided her team to a national aerobics championship in Queensland, was described as “determined, fun, cheeky, and talented” by the Montrose Football Netball Club, where she co-captained.
During a stay at a friend’s house on March 31, Esra sniffed a can of spray deodorant for a deadly high and suffered irreversible brain damage after going into cardiac arrest.
According to her mother Andrea, “it was just the regular routine of going to hang out with her mates,” Langdon said. “We always knew where she was and who she was with,” her father Paul continued. There was nothing unusual about it.We regrettably received the phone call, which said, “Come and get your daughter.” It was one of the calls that no parent ever likes to get at that hour of the night.
According to Langdon, Esra’s friends believed she was suffering a panic attack, but “no one at the sleepover used cardiac arrest, and after inhaling deodorant, her body was actually starting to shut down.”
Paramedics were attempting to resuscitate Esra when Andrea got there, and they informed her mother that her daughter had been chroming—something she had never heard of before.
Esra was brought to the hospital with the hope that their infant daughter would get better. Perhaps she would survive since her heart and lungs were robust.
Esra’s brain was declared “beyond repair” after eight days on life support, and Paul and Andrea were informed that they needed to make the decision to shut down the machine.
Her parents described the anguish of taking their daughter’s life, struggling to speak and reliving their darkest moment.
“It was a very, very difficult thing to do to such a young soul,” Esra’s father stated when asked to take relatives and friends to the hospital for their last farewells. We lay with her when she was placed on a bed. We held her close until the last end.
Being a mother of two small children and overcome by the parent’s anguish, Langdon broke down in tears.
Paul claims that Esra’s siblings, Imogen, Seth, and Charlie, are “shattered,” and the family is “completely broken” following Esra’s death in early April.
Paul remarked, “It was absolutely devastating, devastating for everyone involved, including all of her friends.” “This has been the most trying and traumatic period that any parent could experience.” We’re not ourselves because we haven’t been sleeping, eating much, or smiling.But the community has also been impacted, not just us.
Paul and his wife, who had never heard of chroming before it murdered their daughter, are on a mission to raise awareness of the fatal viral trend that is becoming more and more common among teenagers. It can be readily accomplished using store-bought materials like paint, deodorant, hairspray, or even permanent markers.
According to Paul, who spoke with a local news station, he wishes he had learned about chroming when Esra was still alive so he could have alerted her to the risks: “We would have definitely had the conversation around our kitchen table if we had been informed and the word had gotten out.”
“In order to give these kids the best advice right away, we need to step it up and let them learn the information directly from the source—not through friends or social media.”
Paul intends to educate parents so that they can educate their kids and, ideally, save their lives. their offspring.
“Parents should sit down with their kids and have a talk with them, opening it up gradually. To be sure, we had no idea what was happening.
Numerous children in Australia and throughout the world have died as a result of the concerning trend of chroming since 2009.
Young people are drawn to chroming as a way to acquire a quick, short-term high, even though it can cause seizures, heart attacks, asphyxia, abrupt smelling death, coma, and organ failure.
Paul said to Langdon, “We have images in our minds of what we were confronted with that will never be removed.” “Our stomach was torn out.”
How difficult it must be for a family to decide to remove a young kid from life support is beyond our comprehension. We send our condolences to the Haynes family and all of Esra’s surviving family members.
Help parents save their children’s lives by teaching them about the perils of this deadly trend by sharing this story with everyone you know.