THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 12, 1994 TAG: 9409120042
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
A 13-year-old girl died after inhaling aerosol chemicals from spray cans during a sleep-over at her best friend's house, police said.
Friends said Amanda Brotherton, an honor roll student at Newsome Park Middle School, was not a ``huffer'' - someone who sniffs chemicals to get high. The girl who was with her, Kate Stepp, told Amanda's mother that Friday night was only the second time Amanda had tried huffing.
Amanda died early Saturday morning after apparently suffering heart failure.
Amanda and Kate made plans to sleep Friday night at the Stepps' house. The girls asked to sleep in a camper trailer in the back yard, and they were given permission to do so, said Bill Roth, spokesman for the Newport News police and fire departments.
``It was a big deal for them, being alone in the trailer instead of in the house with everyone else,'' said Amanda's mother, Peggy Brotherton.
About midnight Friday, Kate's mother, Debbie Stepp, went to check on the girls and found Amanda passed out, Roth said.
When Peggy Brotherton arrived, Amanda was lying on the floor of the trailer. She wasn't moving. ``Debbie's husband was trying to give her CPR,'' Brotherton said. ``Debbie was shaking her, telling her, `Wake up. Wake up.' ''
Amanda was taken to Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Police found a can of Lysol disinfectant spray and a can of Renuzit air freshener spray in the trailer.
A police detective told Peggy Brotherton that Amanda's cause of death was probably heart failure. The term for what happened is sudden sniffing death syndrome, in which the chemicals being inhaled rush to the brain and activate a signal that stops the heart.
``We're having a real problem in this city with kids getting high on aerosol spray,'' Roth said. ``They don't realize what it's doing to them.''
Police said Stewart Kibler, 18, of Newport News, inhaled a chemical used to clean computers before he drove a car into a lake July 29, drowning a passenger.
KEYWORDS: AEROSOL SPRAY ACCIDENTS GENERAL FATALITY ACCIDENTAL DEATH
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