ALBEMARLE TEEN DIES AFTER INHALING SPRAY

A 19-year-old Albemarle. man is dead after huffing Renuzit air freshener.
Christopher "Chris'' Oliver Goins' great-grandmother found him on the
bathroom floor passed out Saturday night, said Albemarle Police Chief Chuck
McManus. "And he obviously had been sniffing aerosol, Renuzit air freshener.
And it appears to have: killed him." Police have sent Goins' body to the
state Medical Examiner's office for an autopsy to pin down the cause of
death. McManus said Goins, of 309 Old Charlotte Road, told his
great-grandmother he was going to take a bath. After Goins had been in the
bathroom a while, his great-grandmother checked on him and discovered him on
the floor.

When Rescue Officials arrived, they tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate
Goins, Officials entered the bathroom and immediately noticed., a strong
odor of propellant from the air freshener. McManus said Goins sprayed the
Renuzit into a towel and then sniffed it.

"We've had kids inhaling gas fumes and White Out and glue, but this if the
first time we've had a death from aerosol," the chief said. McManus said a
person can overdose any time he or she inhales aerosol. When a person
inhales the propellent, the body's blood vessels constrict and the body's
vital organs get less oxygen, McManess said. If enough propellant enters
the body, the lungs shutdown.

Inhaling of aerosol cans is a problem nationwide"' he said, "but it's the
first -death that we've had.''

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst