Florida 7-Month-Old Dies After Eating Liquid Laundry Packet

Michael Williams ate a packet when his mother stepped away, police said

Poison control officials said a 7-month-old Florida boy died after swallowing a liquid laundry packet.

The Florida Poison Information Center said this is the first death since the first reported exposure case in May 2012. The American Association of Poison Control Centers said national data for this year has not yet been compiled. However, this kind of poisoning death has not been reported in prior years.

Kissimmee Police said the boy was taken from a shelter for abused women to the hospital Friday afternoon where he was pronounced dead. Police identified him as Michael Williams, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The child's mother reported to authorities that she had placed detergent pods that were given out by the shelter inside a laundry basket on the bed where her son was asleep, according to the Sentinel.

She stepped away but returned to find that her son had eaten one packet and was starting on a second one, Kissimmee Police spokeswoman Stacie Miller told the newspaper.

No charges have been filed. The Florida Department of Children and Families it had a prior history with the boy's family. Nearly two dozen children die each year in Florida from accidental poisoning, according to DCF.

"The death of little Michael is a tragedy," agency spokeswoman Terri Durdaller wrote in an email to the Sentinel. "It reminds all of us as parents the dangers of leaving household cleaning supplies around our little ones."

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