20 Sabah teens in hospital for drinking paint thinner

KOTA KINABALU: Rubber tapper Martin Laissu still cannot wrap his head around the fact that his son drank thinner in what could have been a dare among students in Pitas district recently.

“I just don’t understand why he would do that. I mean I don’t understand why anyone would think of such an idea. Maybe they were challenging one another,” said the 44-year-old.

Martin’s son, who is 17 and the eldest of his five children, is unconscious and receiving treatment in the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital here.

Martin said his son is kind and caring and is not a person to indulge in such a dangerous act.

“I don’t blame the hostel warden because how would one know since they had already mixed the thinner and carbonated drink in water bottles,” he said when met at the hospital yesterday morning.

His son was among 20 teenagers aged between 13 and 17 who had gotten ill after consuming the carbonated drink mixed with thinner on June 6. They were sent to the hospital on June 8 when their condition worsened.

Martin is now staying at the hospital lobby with his wife, Dulanah Awayai, 36. as they wait for their son to regain consciousness.He said that all he wanted was for his son to get strong enough to wake up and recuperate well and, at the moment, there seems to be a ray of hope after all.

“The doctor told us that his heart and other organs were functioning well, but they were monitoring his kidneys,” he said.

He said his son showed signs of regaining consciousness but the doctors decided to let him sleep further as it was better for his recuperation process.

He wants to know why they did what they did, but said he will not be scolding or going too hard on the teenager because what mattered was that he recovers from this incident.

Kota Marudu OCPD Supt Zairolnizal Ishak said the case was put under the Health and Education Department as there were no criminal elements.

It is learnt that four other students who are also in semi-critical conditions are being treated at a different hospital.

As for the remaining students, some were still warded at Pitas Hospital while others have been released and returned home.