Pubdate: Wed, 11 Jul 2001
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas
Contact:  http://www.star-telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162
Author:  Deanna Boyd, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

'HUFFING' SUSPECTED IN DEATH

Youth May Have Been Inhaling Freon Taken From Air Conditioner

FORT WORTH - An 18-year-old found dead Tuesday morning behind his Fort 
Worth home with a plastic bag over his head may have been inhaling Freon 
before his death, police officials said.

Family members said Danny C. Poole was last seen alive about 11:30 p.m. 
Monday by one of his brothers at the family's home in the 2400 block of 
Yeager Street. His father found the teen's body about 8:30 a.m.

"His dad walked in the back yard this morning and saw him in a chair back 
there," said homicide Sgt. Skeeter Anderson, who arrived at the teen's home 
to discover that the victim was a former neighbor he had watched grow up.

Although investigators are awaiting autop-sy results, Anderson said, they 
think Poole may have been "huffing" Freon because of the plastic bag and 
because an air conditioner had been tampered with.

Huffing is the act of inhaling fumes that produce mind-altering effects and 
behavioral changes.

"I still don't believe this," the teen's father, Billy Poole, said Tuesday. 
"I've had talks with my boy. This is just stupid. It doesn't make sense to 
me, but it happens. He was a very pretty young boy. He had his whole life 
ahead of him."

Police say inhalant abuse is seen mostly among younger teens. The average 
age of first use of inhalants is 12.2, according to a 2000 study of Texas 
secondary students by the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

Billy Poole said he had asked his son if he was huffing Freon after the 
home's air conditioner unit kept running low on the cooling agent.

"I had asked him because the man who services my unit said a lot of kids 
were doing that nowadays," Poole said.

But Danny Poole had denied it.

Cautious anyway, Billy Poole said, he wrapped tape around part of the air 
conditioner to keep anyone out. On Tuesday morning, police found that the 
tape had been disturbed.

"This isn't the way I wanted to find out," Billy Poole said.

Dr. Jim Cox, an emergency physician at Harris Methodist Fort Worth 
hospital, said teens abuse inhalants to get high.

"What happens is they become hypoxic, which is low oxygen. Particularly if 
you have a plastic bag over your head filled with freon, where's the 
oxygen? It's not there."

Cox said the lack of oxygen fills the teen with a euphoric sensation, "but 
that's on the way to death."

"There's not a lot of in between that we've seen with this," Cox said. 
"You're either dead or you're damaging yourself."

Billy Poole said his son was a former Eastern Hills High School student who 
planned to return to school in the fall and liked to oil paint. He said he 
suspects that someone may have been with his son at the time of his death.

"Danny was a very loving, easygoing boy who liked to follow the crowd," 
Billy Poole said. "He always wanted to be part of the crowd. That's what 
upsets me about all this. ... There might have been time for me to call an 
ambulance."

Anderson said that police are looking into the possibility that others 
could have been present but that they had no indication of that Tuesday.

Billy Poole said he hoped other parents will read about his son's death and 
make sure their own children aren't huffing. Among the red flags are low 
levels of Freon in air conditioners when there is no detectable leak, and 
remnants of plastic garbage bags in the yard, he said.

"My little Danny. My buddy. I don't have him no more," Poole said, his 
voice cracking. "Somehow I'm going to get this message out to the kids, if 
I've got to walk up and down the street. They've got to quit doing this. 
They've got to quit doing this."
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