Parents End Life Support for 13-Year-Old After Sleepover Incident

Appearing on A Current Affair with host Ally Langdon, the two parents Andrea and Paul Haynes recounted the tragic story of their daughter, Esra Haynes. She died after participating in a social media challenge known as chroming, which involves inhaling toxic chemicals to get high.

Described as “determined, fun, cheeky, and talented” by the Montrose Football Netball Club, where she co-captained, Esra was an accomplished athlete. She raced BMX bikes with her brothers and led her team to a national aerobics championship in Queensland.

On March 31, Esra attended a sleepover at a friend’s house. Seeking a dangerous high, she inhaled aerosol deodorant, which led to cardiac arrest and severe brain damage.

“It was just the regular routine of going to hang out with her mates,” her mom Andrea, told in the interview. Her father added, “We always knew where she was and we knew who she was with. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary…To get this phone call at that time of night, (it) was one of the calls no parent ever wants to have to receive, and we unfortunately got that call: ‘Come and get your daughter.’”

Langdon explains that Esra’s friends initially thought she was having a panic attack. But after inhaling deodorant, her body was starting to shut down; she was in cardiac arrest and no one at the sleepover used cardiac arrest.

When Andrea reached Esra, paramedics were attempting to revive her. They informed Andrea that her daughter had been chroming, something she had never encountered before.

Esra was taken to the hospital, where her parents clung to the hope that she would recover. Her heart and lungs were strong, raising their hopes for a miracle.

After eight days on life support, doctors informed Paul and Andrea that Esra’s brain was damaged “beyond repair, and we had to make the decision to turn off the machine.”

Her parents, struggling to articulate their grief, recounted the agony of ending their daughter’s life.

They were asked to gather family and friends for final goodbyes. Esra’s dad said, “It was a very, very difficult thing to do to such a young soul. She was put onto a bed so we could lay with her. We cuddled her until the end.”

Langdon, overwhelmed by the parents’ heartache and as a mother of two young children, teared up, unable to contain her emotions.

Since Esra’s death in early April, Paul says the family is completely “broken,” and Esra’s siblings, Imogen, Seth, and Charlie, are “shattered.”

“It was really devastating, devastating for everyone involved, all her friends as well,” Paul said. “It’s been the most difficult, traumatic time any parent could go through. We haven’t been sleeping, we’ve hardly been eating, we haven’t been smiling–we’re not ourselves…But it’s not just affected us, it’s the community as well.”

Paul and his wife had never heard of chroming until it tragically claimed their daughter’s life. Now, they are on a mission to raise awareness about this dangerous viral trend, which involves inhaling fumes from everyday products like deodorant, paint, hairspray, or permanent markers. This risky behavior is becoming alarmingly popular among teenagers.

In an interview with a local news station, Paul expressed his deep regret, stating that he wished he had known about chroming while his daughter Esra was alive, as he would have warned her about its dangers: “If we were educated and the word had been put out there, we would have had the discussion around our kitchen table for sure. We need to ramp it up and let these kids find out the information first-hand, and not through friends, and not through social media–then they’re given the right advice off the bat.”

Paul is committed to educating parents so they can, in turn, educate their children about the dangers of asthma, potentially saving young lives.

Since 2009, an alarming trend known as chroming has been linked to the deaths of numerous children in Australia and worldwide.

Chroming, which can cause seizures, heart attacks, suffocation, sudden sniffing death, coma, and organ failure, appeals to young people seeking a quick, short-term high.

“We’ve got the pictures in our mind which will never be erased, you know, of what we were confronted with,” Paul told Langdon. “Our gut was ripped out.”

We can only imagine the immense pain of a family having to decide to take their young child off life support. Our deepest sympathies go out to the Haynes family and to all who loved Esra.