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Middle School Honors Student Dies After Huffing Computer Duster
(Photo by freelanceartist via Shutterstock)
A middle school student in Northridge died this week after huffing a can of computer duster.Aria Doherty, 13, was a straight-A student at Nobel Charter Middle School in Northridge, according to CBS Los Angeles. But on Monday night she huffed from a can of computer duster, which sent her into cardiac arrest.
Her parents Richard and Carolyn Doherty said they were caught completely off-guard. They had talked to their daughter about drug use before and they had never found any evidence that she had huffed at all. Doherty was a straight-A student, ambitious and very active at her school. Recently, she played the Wicked Witch in her school's performance of the "Wizard of Oz." Now her parents are speaking out about the issues in the hopes that other deaths like their daughter's can be prevented.
Carolyn told CBS L.A., "This was not that she had done it so many times that the chemicals had finally caused her brain damage or she’d gotten too much into her system. This is about her having a heart attack from just the very moment that she did the inhaling."
The school sent a notice home to parents letting them know that Doherty had died, but they did not mention how she died. But grief counselors are visiting the campus, and the school has plans to hold an assembly warning students of the dangers of huffing.
Some fellow students posted remembrances of Doherty on the school's Facebook page.
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