Poison Prevention Week: Keeping Kids Safe with Pinky the Elephant

By: Rowena Li - Email

Updated: Tue 12:11 PM, Apr 02, 2013

Poison Prevention Week: Keeping Kids Safe with Pinky the Elephant

Accidental poisonings can be a scary idea for many parents, and experts say, it could be caused by many items in your home.

"Usually household products, cleaning products, things in the garage, a lot of things parents don't even think about. Perfumes, nail polishes, anything under your kitchen sink, under your bathroom sink, those are huge potential poisons for children," said pharmacist Beckie Uelmen.

To help prevent such poisonings, the Kearney Area Children's Museum paired up with a local pharmacist Sunday to help teach kids and parents how to be safe.

"It's a great idea, a great opportunity, for us to be able to serve the families that come here and offer an activity for them to promote safety on their home-front, to prevent accidental poisonings," said Jennifer Beck with the Museum.

To help engage kids in learning about poison prevention, the Nebraska Regional Poison Center uses Pinky the Elephant.

"The educational cartoons involve Pinky, all the coloring books, it's kind of a relatable character. Kids love cartoons and what's not to love about a big pink elephant?" Uelmen said.

Pinky says parents also need to be aware of where they keep their prescription and over-the-counter medications. Statistics show about 90 percent of all unintentional poisoning deaths are caused by drugs.

"Medications are a huge potential because kids try to do what parents do. They try to do what adults do and they see adults take medication, they want to take medication. Medication sometimes looks like candy," said Uelmen.

Experts say the best prevention technique is childproofing your home.

"Putting any sort of cleaners or anything like that out of reach for children. If you have medications in your home, which we all do, they need to be out of reach, preferably locked up," advised Uelmen.

And if you think your child accidentally ingested something, call the Poison Center as soon as possible at 1-800-222-1222.

"There are nurses on staff right there that will walk parents through what to do and direct them towards appropriate help," said Uelmen.

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