LITTLE ROCK (KATV) \u2014 An Arkansas father is calling for the sale of bulk over-the-counter medication to minors to be prohibited after his daughter overdosed on Rexall, a store-brand equivalent of Benadryl, something that has become too common because of a dangerous social media trend.<\/p>\n
Last Tuesday, 14-year-old Ava had to be medevaced to Arkansas Children\u2019s after she says she took 70 Benadryl tablets.<\/p>\n
“She was having to be airlifted to Arkansas Children\u2019s Hospital because of the heart complications… she was hallucinating. She was delirious. She didn\u2019t know where she was. It took over 24, 36 hours to get her stabilized. But yeah, it was the scariest moment of my life. I don\u2019t want any parents to have to go through that,” Ricky Vaughn, Ava’s father, told KATV.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just Ava. There\u2019s been a dangerous social media trend in recent years of minors participating in a so-called \u201cBenadryl challenge\u201d to chase a high and experience frightening hallucinations. <\/p>\n
Multiple children across the country have died participating. TikTok has blocked searches of \u201cBenadryl\u201d but it\u2019s not hard to find.<\/p>\n
Ricky says the ambulance paramedic who took his daughter to the hospital told him that such overdose cases have become frequent.<\/p>\n
He said they get these one or two times a week where they\u2019re flying kids to Little Rock because they took Benadryl.<\/p>\n
Doctor Josh Lyon at All for Kids Pediatric Clinic in Little Rock says more than one-third of child overdoses are from over-the-counter medication.<\/p>\n
“Benadryl has become incredibly common from an overdose perspective, and it does not take near as much as I think what kids and families expect to really wind up with serious consequences,” Lyon told KATV.<\/p>\n
Ava was released from the hospital on Tuesday and seems to be recovering well. She says she wasn\u2019t doing a social media challenge, but attempting suicide.<\/p>\n
“I had looked up drugs that could possibly be used for overdoses, so Benadryl I think was like one of the top five, top three,” Ava told KATV.<\/p>\n
After the FDA issued warnings about Benadryl abuse by minors in 2020, many large retailers began checking for ID. Ricky and Ava say that Dollar General, where Ava purchased a 365-tablet bottle, did not check her ID.<\/p>\n
“No ID, I just paid with Cash App and I was let go\u2014they let me out the store,” Ava said.<\/p>\n
“Walgreens, Target, Walmart\u2014they all put systems in place for the point-of-sale transaction to prevent it. Dollar General did no such thing,” Ricky told KATV.<\/p>\n
Ricky has not only reached out to Dollar General but his local legislators. He says laws are needed regulating how much over-the-counter medication kids can buy.<\/p>\n
“I looked it up. There\u2019s not really any laws to prevent minors from buying over-the-counter medication in any quantity,” he said.<\/p>\n
Lyon agrees that a state policy\u2014not just policies by individual retailers\u2014is needed.<\/p>\n
“I think a volume limit is very reasonable. How many of my teenagers need more than a bottle of 25 Tylenol at a time or 12 Benadryl at a time? It\u2019s probably pretty small,” Lyon told KATV.<\/p>\n
Ricky says he\u2019s waiting to hear back from Dollar General or legislators in response to his concerns.<\/p>\n