THE GIRLWHO CAN'T STOP DRINKING GASOLINE
If smelling gasoline weren't a health hazard enough, meet the girl who drinks it.
Lifting a red gas canister before the cameras, a girl named Shannon demonstrates her claimed addiction of drinking gasoline for TLC'S television program My Strange Addiction.
'It tingles at first and then it, it burns the back of my throat,' Shannon says describing her toxic habit which reaches up to 12 teaspoons a day.
'Even though it hurts me, it makes me feel good,' she says, of either licking the cap or drinking it straight out of the canister which she says is her favorite way.
Her mother says she at first didn't believe it when she heard but then she smelt the undeniable smell of the substance on her daughter's breath.
'I take the cap off and I breathe in the fumes that come forcing out of the can,' Shannon says, demonstrating her behavior.
TLC approximates that she has consumed over five gallons in the last year alone.
'Drinking gasoline can cause burns, vomiting, diarrhea and, in very large amounts, drowsiness or death,' the New York State Department of Health writes. For those reason, 'it is toxic,' they explain.
The full episode, set to premiere on Sunday, covers several other strange addictions documented by the television program including a woman who carries a doll's head wherever she goes and another who finds a need to sniff Pine-sol cleaning liquid every 15 minutes.
Shannon's addiction to sipping gasoline comes days after a North Carolina man died after accidentally drinking from a jar containing the same liquid.
Gary Allen, 43, immediate- ly spit out the mistaken liquid which also got on his clothes when finding it on the kitchen sink of his friend's apartment and mistaking it for a beverage.
In his next mistake, he later stepped outside to light a cigarette, igniting the blaze that consumed him.
The highly flammable liquid was said to have been used to help remove grease from his friend's hands who's a mechanic.
Havelock Police called it 'a freak incident.
(©Daily Mail, London)
I take the cap off and I breathe in the fumes that come forcing out of the can,' Shannon says, demonstrating her behaviour