2024 - 3-year-old child poisoned after eating garden soil

In the UK, a 3-year-old boy suffers from acute lead poisoning after eating soil from his garden.

No matter how much we tell children not to put everything in their mouths, the worst sometimes ends up happening. In Bristol, UK, a little boy suffers from acute lead poisoning after eating soil from his garden. According to his mother Layla Carter, 27, little Vinnie has autistic disorder and PICA disease, an eating disorder characterized by the need to eat inedible substances.

It all started in 2021. After noticing her son’s stools were white, Layla rushed him to the emergency room. On the spot, the doctors did not immediately understand what the child was suffering from. But following a blood test in March 2021, the diagnosis was made: acute lead poisoning, also called lead poisoning. “He kept eating the soil from the garden,” his mother told BristolLive. We try to stop him, but he gets very aggressive and he gets angry. It’s horrible, it’s as if his body needed dirt. It’s extremely stressful, I’m on antidepressants now. My eldest has been suffering from panic attacks since all this started, he is very afraid of ending up poisoned, too.

“I feel guilty for not being able to protect him as a mother”

Following Vinnie’s diagnosis, a soil test was conducted on the Carter property. “They wrote to me and called to explain that the lead and arsenic level is very high in front of the house, and that the council was going to come by to remove the earth and pour cement“, explains the mother of the family. Despite this, for fear of seeing her son’s condition worsen, Layla applied to Bristol City Council for her family to be rehoused. She claims that the back of the garden would also be poisoned, but the council assures the contrary. “They think that having fixed things in front of the house, it’s over, but I think they should change our address for the safety of my son, who has special needs and is only 3 years old. It’s not every day that a child is poisoned by lead. This property is toxic. I feel guilty for not being able to protect him as a mother. I have no control.”

In the long term, exposure to lead can cause irreversible damage, such as hypertension, sterility, cancers or damage to the nervous system.

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The Carters’ garden
Little Vinnie ate the soil in his garden.

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Bristol
Bristol

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The earth was poisoned with lead
“They wrote to me and called me to explain to me that the level of lead and arsenic is very high in front of the house”, says the mother of the family.

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The little boy ate a lot of dirt
“He kept eating the soil from the garden,” his mother told BristolLive. We try to stop him, but he gets very aggressive and he gets angry.”