FACT CHECK: THIS BOY DID NOT DIE AFTER CONSUMING DRY ICE! HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

According to a video going viral right now, a child died after consuming dry ice, or solidified carbon dioxide. In it, a man served a smoky liquid to a child at a food stall. After consuming the liquid, he screamed in pain and appeared distraught.

 

According to posts viral on Facebook and X, the boy allegedly died after consuming dry ice, with some claiming

this was from Karnataka. The archives of such a post can be seen here.

India Today Fact Check found that while this video is from Karnataka's Davangere, the child in it did not die.

OUR PROBE 

We reverse-searched keyframes from the video and found several

Kannada-language news reports about it. A report published on April 18 said that the video was from an exhibition

held in Davangere, where a child fell sick after consuming "smoke biscuits". The child's parents immediately took him to the hospital, where he reportedly recovered after the treatment. 

In the video, "Smoke Biscuits" can be seen written on the stall's counter. "Smoke Biscuits", according to a News18 report, are made by adding liquid nitrogen to normal biscuits. They are called so because eating them will fill your mouth with thick white vapour.

Several news reports claimed that the child fell ill after consuming the "smoke biscuit" at the "Robotic Birds Exhibition" in Karnataka's Davangere but later recovered.

India Today reached out to the boy's father RT Satyanarayana, who said that this incident took place on April 14 and confirmed that his son was alive and well. Davangere police superintendent Uma Prashanth confirmed the same to India Today and added that the child's parents did not wish to register a complaint. She added, however, that the police shut down the kiosk and informed the food security department about the matter.

HEALTH RISKS WITH DRY ICE AND LIQUID NITROGEN 

Both dry ice and liquid nitrogen can cause harm. But while the former's temperature ranges around -78.5 degrees Celsius, the latter's

can reach -196 degrees Celsius. Both substances produce thick white vapours at room temperature and are often used as a freezing agent in food preparation and preservation.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, both can cause severe damage to the skin and internal organs if mishandled or accidentally ingested because of the extremely low temperatures they can maintain. Liquid nitrogen and dry ice should not be directly consumed or even applied to one's skin.

In early March, an eatery in Haryana's Gurugram accidentally served a family of five dry ice instead of mouth freshener, resulting in them vomiting blood.

With inputs from HM Kumar in Davangere

2024-04-23T17:31:45Z dg43tfdfdgfd