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Ohio Co. Child Faces Long Recovery After Drinking Meth Making Item

Tristate homepage.com, June 12, 2013

We're learning the two-year-old Ohio County girl who drank an ingredient used to make meth, is improving. But she is now in serious condition in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator.

Frankee has severe chemical burns to her lips, mouth, and esophagus. The toddler's mother, Racheal L. Arroyo, 20, her mother's boyfriend, Jared R. McStoots, 23, and his mother, Loie M. McStoots, 50, are facing charges and will appear in court Friday. They're accused of not only allowing the little girl to drink the acid, but for not getting her to a hospital for several hours. So what kind of recovery are we looking at for this baby?

Doctors say liquid fire is dangerous to handle and potentially deadly if consumed. They add Frankee faces a long, problematic recovery.

Sulfuric acid, rodine. Just some of the ingredients in drain opener, which some use as an ingredient in meth.

"It's an incredibly dangerous thing and certainly nothing you want to have happen to a child."

Yet investigators say it still happened to little Frankee, now in a hospital fighting for her life. Doctor Neil Troost of Methodist Hospital says it causes significant internal damage.

"Anything from irritation to significant burns that can heal, burns that cannot heal easily, and cause scarring and structures in the esophagus," Troost says.

Troost says those symptoms depend on amount consumed, dilution, and if person drank it on a full or empty stomach.

"If you have a significant burn with strictures and perforations, the medical course is going to be complicated and prolonged and there could be permanent deficits to that child," he says. "This child may be looking at some very unpleasant reconstructive surgery down the road depending on how serious her injuries are."

But what could've done the most damage was the alleged lack of immediacy by the couple in getting the child to the hospital. Troost says those lost hours gave the chemical more time to harm Frankee.

"To, kind of just, let it sit and burn the child's intestinal track is obviously the worst possible thing you can do."