PLYMOUTH, Mass. — It is sold at various vitamin shops and is supposed to increase energy and performance for adults going to the gym -- but kids are selling it at school, claiming it helps video gaming performance.
And for one child in Plymouth, it was a very close call.
Dylan Butler, a 10-year-old, is home from the hospital and back to normal, but just over two days ago he gave his mom quite the scare. She had no idea what suddenly made her son start acting strange.
"He was stumbling down the stairs, he couldn't really walk straight, he was slurring his words, he was just kind of spacing out," Dylan's mother, Josee Torres, said. "He was looking at you and you could tell he wasn't really seeing anything."
Within hours, he was vomiting and in the hospital. But doctors called police when Dylan told them what he had taken earlier in the day at school, saying a classmate gave him the powdery substance.
"They just said it was a Kool-Aid mix and it tasted really good," Dylan Butler said.
It's called G-Fuel and it's manufactured by a company called Gamma Labs. It has a high concentration of caffeine and a normal serving is about a teaspoon for adults. Dylan drank about a quarter cup mixed with water.
"It was kind of scary, because I didn’t know what was happening, I don't even really remember it, I kind of half blacked out," Butler said.
Torres says it's a lesson learned for Dylan and for other parents out there who may not realize the harm it can cause.
"There's so much focus on the drugs and the alcohol and the drinking and everything, you don’t think about that. Especially with a 10-year-old kid," Torres said.
Dylan says he's happy to be better now, but this family is sharing their experience because he says lots of his friends were also given the substance and both mom and son worry something worse may happen to another child.
Cox Media Group
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