More laughing gas users get burned by ice, say burns units

Laughing gas capsules dumped by the side of a road in Amsterdam. Photo: DutchNews.nl
Laughing gas capsules dumped by the side of a road in Amsterdam. Photo: DutchNews.nl

Hospital burns units are reporting more people suffering burns caused by laughing gas canisters, broadcaster NOS reports.

Over the last three weeks as many as fourteen people were admitted to hospital with severe ice burns to the inside of their thighs resulting from holding extremely cold nitrous oxide canisters between their legs to fill the balloons used to inhale the popular party drug.

Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, produces a short high which alters pain perception making users unaware of the burns. ‘They only find out a day later that they have sustained serious wounds comparable to burns, doctor Ymke Lucas from the Maasstad hospital in Rotterdam told the broadcaster.

The cause for the increase in burns patients is the use of bigger canisters to fill up the balloons, with some containing up to ten litres of nitrous oxide, NOS said.

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