Rexona Deodrant Leaves 16-Year-Old Girl With Permanent Brain Damage

The mother of a teen girl who suffered brain damage after inhaling toxic fumes from Rexona deodorant cans is pleading with parents to talk to their kids about the ill effects of chroming.

Sarah Nevins of Queensland, Australia, says her 16-year-old daughter Chloe Rowe was found lying in bushland without a pulse surrounded by seven empty deodorant cans.

Nevins said Rowe went into cardiac arrest, cutting off oxygen from her brain after inhaling toxic fumes with her boyfriend on June 1.

Paramedics who were called to the scene performed CPR on the teen for almost half an hour before rushing her to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s hospital with a hypoxic brain injury where she remains restricted to a bed.

"Her heart stopped for 27 minutes. If it wasn’t for those first responders she’d be dead," Nevins told 7News.

Nevins has set up a Facebook page to update people on Rowe's progress and had been posting numerous photos and videos of her lying unconscious and fighting for life with a tracheostomy tube in her neck.

"PLEASE! Talk with youth, people you love, family, mates just anyone. This situation, my life is preventable. Inhaling cans is a life sentence," she wrote under one of the videos.

"This is Chloe. A beautiful 16yo girl who made a life-changing choice to chrome… Now, Chloe lies in a hospital bed, alone, and looking at the ceiling. She is brain dead," Nevins wrote.

She posted a video on July 26 where Rowe is awake and able to respond to voice commands, however, she still needs the breathing tube and daily physiotherapy to stop her limbs from posturing.

"It’s upsetting because you’re looking at a wasted life," Nevins told The Courier-Mail

"Her quality of life is going to be severely impacted for the rest of her life over a couple of seconds."

Nevins said she had no idea that her daughter had been inhaling.

"I had no idea she was chroming, I didn’t even know that people did that," Nevins said.

The act of chroming involves sniffing, inhaling, or 'rexing' solvents or other household chemicals to get high.

"I would have had no idea that kids inhaled Rexona, but now I know it’s called Rexing. I thought chroming was with paint and glue," Nevins said.

It's not considered an illegal activity in Queensland, which the mother believes needs to change.

Nevins is now urging the legislation to outlaw the practice and the manufacturers to remove the toxic ingredients.

She said the concerned company had extended their sympathies and posted their response to the Facebook page.

"Any harm to a child is a tragedy and we are committed to tackling this complex issue alongside police, youth services, retailers, and more," the response reads.

"One of the big issues is that a huge range of aerosol products available in stores can be used for chroming. This includes products such as spray tan, sunscreen, shaving cream, hair spray, spray starch, bug spray, air freshener, and surface sprays."

"Of these aerosol products, more than 90 percent use hydrocarbons as the propellant (the intoxicating component)."

"Hydrocarbon alternatives and additions (such as bitterants) have been explored by aerosol manufacturers and external bodies, however, for a variety of reasons, no approach has proven successful."