Chennai: Two employees of a pest control firm were arrested after two children - aged one and six - died after being exposed to fumes from rat repellent sprayed in their air-conditioned bedroom, officials said.
The arrested have been identified as Dinakaran and Shankar Das.
Police said Giridharan who works in a private bank approached a pest control company to rid his house of rodent infestation. He identified a company through an online service provider and hired them. The company based at T Nagar sent its employees who sprayed pesticides, applied some in gel and also kept some as tablets outside the house on Wednesday.
Giridharan's wife Pavithra had taken the children out to a temple when the pest control services were at work. She returned home with the children later in the evening. All four slept in their bedroom with the air-conditioning machine on, they said.
"The family woke up to breathing difficulty and vomiting on Thursday morning and were admitted to a private hospital in Kundrathur," a police official who is privy to the investigation said.
Not responding to the treatment, the children died. The deceased were identified as Vaishnavi and her younger brother Sai Sudharshan. The bodies were moved to Chromepet Government Hospital for postmortem. The parents were moved to a private hospital in Porur, where they were admitted to the intensive care unit, police said.
Police, quoting doctors, said the pesticide used by the pest control agency could have dispersed into the air to form aerosol and that could have accumulated in the lungs of all four. "This could have triggered the asphyxiation and caused the deaths of the children," they said.
The Kundrathur police took swift action against the T Nagar-based pest control company by registering a case against three individuals from the firm.
Since the owner of the company, Premkumar, has absconded, a special team has been formed to nab him, according to the police.
Meanwhile, Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre in a media statement said, "Giridharan, aged 34/Male and Pavithra, aged 31/Femake were admitted on 14.11.2024 for an alleged history of rat poison inhalation. Both of them are vitally stable and out of critical state. However, they need to be monitored in ICU for another two days."
Dr VP Chandrasekaran, Emergency Medicine Specialist at SRM Hospital, Chennai said, "Raticide and insecticide are available in different forms such as powder, cake, paste and spray. These include zinc phosphate and aluminium phosphate. etc. Aluminium phosphate is fatally toxic and each of these has various toxicities such as paste and cake."
"In the case of these two children who died, diarrhoea, vomiting and asphyxia occurred. Therefore, organophosphorus chemicals are likely the reason for this incident. Because this will affect one's breathing. When such drugs are kept in a closed room, it is possible to breathe in them and toxicity spreads in the body and causes death. Children are particularly vulnerable," Dr Chandrasekaran added.
"Some of the worst raticides contain aluminium phosphate, which is used to kill rodents. This is because aluminium phosphate releases phosphene gas when mixed with water. Therefore, in the insecticide tablets used in that house, the children may have died if they inhaled the phosphine gas from the aluminium phosphate compound mixed with water. Because this gas is very cruel. It can severely damage the body organs including the heart and cause death," added Dr Chandrasekaran.
"It is very important to always keep the windows and doors of the houses open. Also, the chance of survival is very high if the effects of these drugs are properly diagnosed and treated in time," he added.
Dr Karthikeyan of Meenakshi Super Specialty Hospital, Madurai said, "There are three types of Raticide in the form of powder, pill and paste. People generally think that the paste type is the most dangerous. But even breathing Raticide can cause problems. Zinc Phosphate in raticide can cause suffocation in the lungs".
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