A Colorado father shared the despair he felt after learning the truth about a substance his teenage son bought for $13 that he thought was just a sports supplement.
Bruce Brown said the odorless, yellowish-white powder was delivered in a standard UPS package to his Evergreen home in late November 2022 and was addressed to his 17-year-old son, Bennett, a competitive soccer player.
He thought it was just a sports supplement and that night he texted his son asking what it was, but never received a reply. according to USA Today.
In fact, the substance was sodium nitrite, a dangerous chemical that is becoming increasingly popular among young people to end their own lives, which Bennett did the next day.
“They shipped it to him in two days and sold it for about $13,” Bruce said. “That was the price that cost my son his life.”
Bennett Brown, 17, ordered sodium nitrite online in November 2022, which he used to commit suicide
Bruce, a former district attorney, said his son’s mental health began to suffer during the COVID pandemic, when he was no longer able to attend school in person and became isolated from his peers.
He also began to suffer from long COVID and had difficulty breathing that kept him awake at night and made it uncomfortable to leave the house.
To make matters worse, Bruce said, Bennett fell and suffered a concussion that forced him to drop out of Arizona State University, where he was studying English. according to CBS News.
TO 2018 Study They found an association between concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries with an increased risk of suicide.
“One symptom of a concussion is suicide. I didn’t know that. Nobody had ever told me that,” Bruce said.
“I think that just exacerbated the pre-existing sadness that I was feeling.”
The teenager was a competitive soccer player, and when the substance first arrived at his home, Bruce thought it was just an athletic supplement.
His father, Bruce Brown, is now fighting for regulation of the preservative, which is lethal in high concentrations.
After his son’s death, Bruce learned that Bennett had visited an online forum where people encourage others to end their lives.
It is also reported to detail several methods for doing so.
Bruce now believes it was there that his son learned about sodium nitrite, a preservative used to cure meats that is lethal in high concentrations.
When ingested, the dust can cause methemoglobinemia, a condition in which the blood loses its ability to carry oxygen, according to Dr. Sean McCann of the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago.
He noted that it can be countered with methylene blue, but sodium nitrite acts so quickly that many times the antidote cannot help or is not available in time.
Suicides related to sodium nitrite have increased in recent years among young people as it can be easily purchased at major retailers.
Suicides related to sodium nitrite have increased in recent years, according to a study published in June by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency attributes his rise to online forums like the one Bennett used, where sodium nitrite is often discussed.
Other Study published in January They found that sodium nitrite poisoning was “an increasingly common method of planned suicide among youth,” with the average victim being “a white male student with a known depressive disorder and a history of suicidal thoughts.”
The substance can be easily purchased at major retailers, and the parents of two teenagers who died by suicide using the drug previously sued Amazon because their children purchased the compound through the website, according to USA Today.
In October 2022, Amazon instituted a policy limiting the sale of high concentrations of the substance, and last June, a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
The teenager (pictured with his mother) died on the way to hospital after alerting a relative.
In Bennett’s case, the teen was able to purchase 97 percent pure sodium nitrite for $13.99 with two-day shipping from an out-of-state sporting goods store. Colorado Public Radio reports.
He was apparently having second thoughts about committing suicide and cancelled the order, only to have the store’s website prompt him to buy it anyway.
The teenager then ingested the toxic substance, but apparently had second thoughts again: he approached a relative and told him he needed to go to a hospital immediately.
Paramedics rushed to his suburban home and transported him to a local hospital, but he died in the ambulance.
Following the teen’s death, Bruce sent a private investigator to the store where Bennett purchased the substance, where a manager acknowledged that he knew people were using the product to commit suicide.
“My son didn’t want to die,” Bruce insisted. “After taking the poison, he went to a relative and said, ‘I need help.’ That’s very common among people who commit suicide.
“It’s not a well-thought-out act, it’s an impulsive act,” added the former district attorney, who has since fought for the poison’s restriction.
“If we can use media restriction to interrupt that pattern of thinking that leads people to the dark place, we can save a lot of lives. And that’s the goal.”
Bennett’s mental health began to suffer during the COVID pandemic, when he was isolated from his friends, his father said.
Bruce has championed a bill that would limit the sale of the compound in high concentrations in Colorado and require manufacturers to specify on the label that it is a poison and how to reverse it.
“After months of pain, I asked myself, ‘What if we could prevent this pain-filled suffering for other families?'” she told a panel of state lawmakers in January, according to Colorado Public Radio.
The bill passed in Colorado with little opposition and went into effect in July.
At the time, the Centennial State became the third in the country to place limits on sodium nitrite, after New York banned the sale of the substance to anyone under 21 and California banned the sale to anyone under 18, as well as the sale of the concentrated substance in all cases.
Bruce described his son as funny, athletic and well-loved.
Bruce is now also advocating for the Juvenile Poisoning Protection Act, which would ban the sale of sodium nitrite in high concentrations nationwide.
It passed the House of Representatives in May and is now in the Senate.
“If you lose a child, there is nothing worse,” said the father, who is still in mourning. “Not an hour goes by without my mind going to Bennett.
‘He was a great kid. He was funny. He was athletic when he was healthy. He was well-liked.
‘The irony is that he would never have hurt another person or animal, but he still took his own life.’