A teenager has been rushed to hospital after experiencing a bad reaction to chroming at the Broadwater Parklands on the Gold Coast.
The teen had also allegedly robbed a woman of her handbag just moments before.
The girl is now in a stable condition in Gold Coast University Hospital.
BREAKING: A teenager has been rushed to hospital after a bad reaction to chroming at the Broadwater Parklands on the...
Also known as huffing, sniffing or rexing, chroming is the dangerous act of inhaling an aerosol spray usually containing solvents or other household chemicals in order to get high - and it can have some serious consequences.
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If you're an It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia fan - chroming is exactly what we see Charlie Kelly doing when he ends up with silver paint across his face prior to creating the 'The Nightman Cometh'.
It's called chroming because it can cause the user to end up with chrome paint around their nose and mouth.
While the episode gave us a laugh, in the real world it's definitely no joking matter. Chroming often has very dangerous potential side effects, including death.
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Jeremy Hayllar, the Clinical Director of Brisbane's Biala Community Health Service, told the ABC that the issue had become more prevalent in the community.
"I am aware that there does seem to be an increased number of very young kids who are running around the [Brisbane] CBD under the influence of solvents or inhalants," Dr Hayllar said.
"All volatile substances are taken up very quickly in the brain and change the way that messages are sent around the brain.
"That can lead to loss of consciousness, so this young lad collapsed, [and] vomiting is a kind of response to things going badly wrong and later on the effects can be progressive."
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Dr Hayllar went on the describe the effects of chroming on the brain - and it's not pretty.
"Imagine something made of plastic; now let's say you heat it up and it kind of loses its shape and form. We could make the same analogy with the effects of solvent on the brain," he said.
"These are all very lipid-soluble compounds so they get into the brain and effectively they start dissolving it.
"It's not heat that's doing it, but it's being dissolved by soluble substances that get into fatty tissue and disrupt them.
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"When people continue use day-to-day, they're really damaging their prospects, their brain development."
Featured Image Credit: 7News