Mae Cumiskey knew her son, Edward, had a substance abuse problem and was trying to get him help.
He was enrolled to start a drug program at Jersey Shore Medical Center, Neptune, this Thursday.
On Saturday night, though, Cumiskey was summoned to the hospital where she learned her 13-year-old boy was dead.
A policeman showed her the two items that the police say led to her son's death: a plastic bag and a pink can of air freshener.
"E.J." Cumiskey had been spraying room deodorizer into a plastic bag and inhaling it, police told his mother. He died of cardiorespiratory arrest due to inhaling aerosol fumes, said Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter Warshaw.
"I just didn't believe it," Cumiskey said. "Even when I saw him I had trouble believing it."
"I can tell you that this practice is extremely dangerous," Warshaw said. "All one has to do is look at the tragic death of a 13-year-old child to see just how dangerous it is."
Police were called at 8:22 pm Saturday to a Wall Township home where they found two of the victim's friends trying to revive an unconscious E.J., officials said. Authorities did not release the address or names of the other juveniles.
efforts to revive the youth with cardiopulmonary resuscitation were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at 9:15 pm at Jeresy Shore Medical Center, Warshaw said.
Edward Miklus, who became the Wall schools superintendent this month, said the intermediate school staff met before school yesterday to discuss the matter.The district's three child-study teams were available again today, he said.
"The children that were his friends were upset, but I think they were handling it well," Miklus said.
For Mae Cumiskey, the thing that frustrates her the most is knowing young people are abusing easily obtained household items that could lead to their deaths.
Searching for a cheap high, inhalant abusers sniff volatile solvents such as gasoline or aerosol sprays that can cause severe damage to the brain and nervous system, medical experts say. Often users become very sick as they starve the bodyof oxygen and forve their heart to beat more rapidly and erratically.
Long-Term use can lead to serious health conditions including brain damage, loss of muscle coordination and damage to the heart, kidneys and other orgams. Other complications could include jaundice, dementiahearing and memory loss, and blindness. Sniffing moderate amounts of inhalants for even a relatively short period of time can diturb vission, impair judgment and reduce muscle and reflex control.
"Inhalants can kill," said Gene Errickson, program coordinator at Jersey Shore's substance abuse counseling services.
"Most kids don't realize just how dangerous these things can be," he said."They think because you can buy them at a store they're safe."
Mae Cumiskey said she found evidence a few months ago that EJ had been inhaling gasoline with some friends. She and her daughter, Katie, 26, confronted him and they called meeting with other parents. They talked to everyone from school officials to police to the family doctor and they thought they were getting EJ the help he needed.
After that incident, Cumiskey threw out anything that could be inhaled in the house, from kitchen to the bathroom. She locked the garage and kept a close eye on EJ and his friends.
She even told her son about a story she had seen on television of a doctor whose son had died from breathing inhalants.
Katie Cumiskey recalled with tears in her eyes how she had tried to get through to her brother. She said he was always a rist taker on his skateboard or in-line skates. "I always thought he had a guardian angel," she said.
Mae Cumiskey said she didn't think anything when EJ went to visit two female friends on a Saturday. Police told her the girls had stopped inhaling the room deodorant, but her son kept on going. He probably "thought he would laugh about it but it wasn't funny," she said. "He never came back."
She described her son as an outgoing and popular boy who loved to fool around and tell stories. "Everyone loved EJ," his mother recalled.
EJ had been involved in the band and on the wrestling and track teams and was starting to do better in school, his mother said. He loved sports of all kinds, from skateboarding to basketball.
But over the past few months, EJ's interest in those activities was flagging, Cumiskey said. "he was starting to cut back, because these kids he got involved with just wanted to hang out," she said. "He had a big heart. He just wanted to belong."
EJ was named after his father who died six years ago. May Cumiskey said her son needed his father's guidance. Now she wonders what she will do with the time she had built around protecting her son. "It's going to be verry difficult," she said.
She made a painful decision to donate her son's organs for transplant in the hope they could help some other child. "He would want that, too," She said. "He would think that was cool."
Mae Cumiskey said she wanted to tell her son's story in the hope that is may deter other young people from trying the sasme thing. "We just hope... fo rhim not to die in vain, that this will wake kids up," she said.
In fact, in a 1994 survey of seventh-and eighth-grade students in 35 NEW Jersey schools, about 10 percent of the students admitted having tried inhalants.
"More than any other substance, inhalant trial and usage appears to have been established before seventh grade," said a report on the survey, which was commissioned by the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey. There have been other deaths in the are over the past few years from the abuse of inhalants.
Hairsprays deodorants vegetable sprays spray paint
glue, gasoline, paint and paint thinner, fingernail polish remover, shoe polish
butyl nitrite nitrous oxide
We know you didn't always have fun,
We tried to please you and tell you we loved,
But you died before we were done.
We needed to tell you how much we cared,
How much fun we thought you were,
We meant to tell you we needed you there,
But now you're gone with no stirr.
I know you're in heaven, and glad you are there,
Yet I wish you were here with me,
Were you scared when you couldn't breathe EJ?
Did the death make you happy?
We prayed for you after you died,
We wished it was not true,
But the funeral brought the truth to our eyes,
When we saw you, it scared us blue.
If only we payed attention,
To the problem with drugs you had,
We may have saved your life,
It makes me feel so bad.
At first I could not say your name,
With out a tear falling down my face,
Now its hard, almost the same,
But I must keep my mind in its place.
People were devistated, and still are,
Me, it's hard to say,
I try to live a normal life,
Yet I'm missing that role you play.
It should not have happend,
You did not deserve to die,
If only people would learn EJ,
Yet what happend made me cry.
The teachers laugh, it's not a lie,
Look what's going on,
They never taught you what drugs did,
If you knew, you wouldn't be gone.
Are you sad to see us like this?
We're all falling apart!
I miss you so much EJ,
I've tried not to cry, but now I'm about to start......
Thankyou so much for taking the time to read about this tragedy. If you need to talk about someone with a drug problem, or if you just want to ask me something about EJ and his problem, e-mail me *S* Thankyou so much! I Love you all and we all love EJ!!
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