Woman arrested after chugging hand sanitizer

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (WTNH) -- A Middletown woman is facing charges for driving drunk, but what makes this case different is what she was drinking.

Police say she admitted to chugging half a bottle of hand sanitizer before getting behind the wheel.

Police say it all happened on Rapallo Avenue last Friday night. They stopped 36-year-old Jennifer Wilcox for erratic driving. She admitted to drinking hand sanitizer and blew a .17.

News 8 spoke with her about it at her home. However, she did not want us to show her face on camera.

"I just saw it there so I drank it," Wilcox said.

"How much did you drink," asked News 8's Bob Wilson.

"Half a bottle," replied Wilcox.

"Was it a big bottle or small bottle," asked Wilson.

"Big bottle," she said.

"Like a gallon," asked Wilson.

"No, but a big bottle. I don't know how big it was," she said."

ER doctors say a small 2 oz. bottle of hand sanitizer is the equivalent of four shots of vodka. Wilcox drank a half of a big bottle; the equivalent of 32 shots of vodka.

With all that alcohol going into your body, the doctors say the side effects are severe.

"They are not really breathing properly," said Dr. Danyal Ibrahim, St. Francis Hospital. "They are intoxicated and they are unconscious, and they might vomit and some of that vomit ends up in their lungs and they become really really sick."

"Did you ever think you were going to die from it," asked Wilson.

"Probably not, I knew that if I drank enough of it I probably could have," Wilcox said. "I would imagine you could, it's poison isn't it?"

Dr. Ibrahim says drinking hand sanitizer is on the rise nationally. Six kids in California were recently hospitalized for alcohol poisoning and if you Google "drinking hand sanitizer" you get nearly a million hits.

Dr. Ibrahim says the anti-bacterial has a higher percentage of alcohol than any liquor you can buy over the counter.

"It's the same alcohol in beer, in wine and Jack Daniels, however, it is more concentrated," Dr. Ibrahim said.

"That was the first time I have ever done it and that will be the last time," Wilcox said.