Meth lab material injures baby boy
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, August 25, 2001
Associated Press
TACOMA — An 11-month-old baby suffered burns on his face and throat when he climbed into a bucket of chemicals used to make methamphetamine, Pierce County sheriff’s deputies say.
The little boy’s face and throat were burned, and he couldn’t eat after he apparently ingested some of the chemicals, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said Friday.
The child was improving Friday night at Children’s Hospital in Seattle but might need reconstructive surgery, The News Tribune of Tacoma reported Saturday.
Deputies arrested the baby’s 16-year-old mother Friday on suspicion of first-degree criminal mistreatment after determining she had waited more than 14 hours to take the child to the hospital.
She was being held at Remann Hall juvenile jail, awaiting a decision from prosecutors about charges.
The mother told deputies she was visiting friends when the accident occurred early Monday.
She said she woke about 5 a.m. in the living room, where she and the baby were sleeping, and was told he had gotten into something that had been washed off.
The child went back to sleep.
When he awoke at 9:30 a.m., his eyes were swollen shut and his lips were blue, according to documents in the case obtained by The News Tribune. The mother did not seek medical attention for him until almost 7:30 p.m., the papers say.
The mother told a social worker at the hospital that her son had been exposed to toluene and lye in a 5-gallon bucket. The social worker overheard her tell medics the baby had gotten into chemicals from a meth lab.
On Thursday, prosecutors charged a father and son with unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance in the presence of a child.
Michael Louis Wood, 47, and Trenton Tracy Wood, 22 — accused of making meth at their Graham-Kapowsin area home east of Tacoma — have pleaded innocent.
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