Four-year-old becomes second child in weeks to collapse and almost die from drinking slushy drink

A mother has spoken out about how her son was rushed to hospital and almost died an hour after downing an iced slushy drink.

Beth Green and Fred Pegg of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, faced a nightmare scenario when their four-year-old son Albie became unresponsive after school on 13 October.

The boy had been bowling with a friend when the pair drank a strawberry-flavoured slushy drink, with him being 'happy and excited' at the bowling alley.

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Within half an hour Albie's mum said he appeared 'tired and agitated' in the back of the car.

Wondering if he just needed something to eat they went to McDonald's, but Albie 'wouldn't eat his food'.

His mum got more worried after they dropped her son's friend off at home and Albie started 'hallucinating' and 'clawing at his face'.

"It was a really strange experience. He kept screaming 'no' and 'leave me alone' in his car seat. He was screaming then going floppy again," Beth said of her son.

"I thought 'maybe he has a virus and is agitated' but he started clawing at himself and couldn't keep himself awake. He wasn't responding."

The couple decided to phone Albie's grandmother, who said they'd better take the four-year-old to A&E but before they arrived the boy's condition worsened.

Beth said: "At this point, I don't even recall if he was breathing. He was a dead weight when I carried him through the door, he was unconscious.

"They were shaking, trying to wake him up but he wasn't responding.

"They took him to the resus room where they started giving him rescue breaths because he wasn't breathing by himself and his heartbeat was extremely low. They had to resuscitate him."

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At one point, Beth and Fred didn't know whether their son would survive the night, though fortunately he did and spent three days in hospital before he could go home.

A doctor told the parents if they'd gone home instead of heading for A&E, they could have lost their son.

In the end, the diagnosis was that Albie had likely suffered from glycerol intolerance from drinking the slushy, as according to the Food Standard Agency high levels of exposure cause shock, hypoglycaemia and loss of consciousness.

The FSA last year introduced new guidance on slushy drinks, recommending that they not be sold to children aged four or younger, though Beth thinks it should be raised to the age of 10.

Earlier this year another boy, a three-year-old called Angus from Port Glasgow drank a slushy and collapsed around half-an-hour later.

His mum Victoria said he went 'stone cold' but was taken to hospital and was able to recover, doctors diagnosed him with glycerol toxicity.