Children’s Shelter Removes Hair Foam

Cans of hair-styling foam were hastily removed from Los Angeles County’s main children’s shelter and a detailed safety review of the facility was being planned, officials said Saturday, after the death of a troubled 12-year-old who inhaled an aerosol propellant.

The death Friday of Jason Pokrzywinski, who officials say sniffed propellant from a can of mousse-like hair foam, was the first in more than 15 years at MacLaren Children’s Center in El Monte. The tragedy has left top managers of the county Department of Children and Family Services struggling for explanations.

The center long ago had taken steps to ban hair spray and other aerosol products commonly abused by young people. But hair-styling foam was considered harmless and had been distributed at the shelter for years, officials there said.

“It’s one of the personal grooming things we felt was safe for the children,” MacLaren Director Jerry Watkins said. “We wanted kids to feel good about themselves. It’s never been a problem before. Obviously [now] we are going to have to look at all the other products.”

Peter Digre, director of the county children’s department, said the county’s inspector general will investigate the circumstances surrounding the death. But department officials and social workers at the shelter “did not anticipate this could have happened,” he said Saturday from the center, where he was reviewing the case.

Investigators at the Los Angeles County coroner’s office were only beginning their examination Saturday, and a report on the cause of death was pending.

But authorities acknowledge that Jason’s death is presenting a number of questions and issues: Was the boy, who had a history of mental, behavioral and inhalant abuse problems, being served in the appropriate place--a shelter intended for short-term stays by foster children? Should officials have been more vigilant in screening the products available to children at the center, which everyone agrees is serving an increasingly troubled population of older children?

Jason collapsed about noon Friday in one of the complex’s residential cottages, officials said, as he emerged from another boy’s room where he had gone briefly to change clothes. “He comes out and obviously something was wrong,” Watkins said. “He told [another] child he had inhaled somebody’s mousse.” Within seconds, Jason collapsed. Despite swift aid from the shelter’s medical staff, officials said, the boy was pronounced dead about two hours later at Greater El Monte Community Hospital.

Jason’s family did not return phone calls Saturday, and no one answered the door at its Hacienda Heights home. An attorney who had represented the boy in court proceedings could not be reached for comment.

Jason had been in psychiatric hospitals four times over the summer, Digre said. He was discharged from a Rosemead facility Sept. 24, after doctors determined that his condition was “not acute,” the children’s department chief said.

Though not familiar with all the circumstances of Jason’s discharge, Digre said: “What happens lately with increasing frequency is children are discharged very quickly from psychiatric hospitals.” He said it appears to be “part of [the] response to managed care. They have fairly vigorous time limits, [discharging children] as soon as the hospital determines they are not acute.”

A supervisor at the hospital that discharged Jason said there was no one available until Monday to comment. The boy went to MacLaren because “he was just too much for his parents to handle,” Digre said.

The death highlights the mounting problems the county shelter faces as it encounters severely troubled youngsters, officials said.

Still, Jason had an unusually intense program of supervision and treatment. A social worker was assigned to him and near his side 16 hours a day, Digre said. The boy also had daily visits with a psychiatric social worker at MacLaren, as well as an outside psychiatrist.

Jason did not have his own room. He slept in a bed in a hallway where workers could keep an eye on him at night. Still Jason, and other children under similar supervision, are afforded small bits of privacy when using the restroom or changing their clothes, officials said.

Digre and the center’s director said the boy was out of his social worker’s eyesight only a few minutes.

Digre said he doubted that his department had the authority or the wherewithal to provide a higher level of psychiatric supervision. “You’d have to make sure they never have personal privacy,” he said.

“I think it’s clear he did not intend to hurt himself,” Digre said. “I just see it as a horrible tragedy. There was a moment of impulse and moment of opportunity.”

The opportunity presented by the hair foam’s presence wasn’t recognized, officials said. The foam used by Jason was donated to the center by a support group trying to improve conditions there.

A spokesman for the Fresno-based California Poison Control Center said this was the first reported death he knew of linked to mousse-like products.