A Tampa man has been hospitalized at Tampa General Hospital after drinking 16 gallons of hand sanitizer to protect himself from the coronavirus.
Jimmy Eduardo Jesus Gonzalez, 26, was transported by ambulance after calling 9-1-1 and informing the emergency dispatcher that he “felt unwell” after drinking over 122 bottles of Purell hand sanitizer during a 72-hour period.
Gonzalez also washed his whole body with hand sanitizer as well as brushed his teeth with the antibacterial product several times a day during at least one week prior to him calling 9-1-1.
“I was brushing my teeth with Purell and I got used to the taste and started drinking it and putting in my cereal instead of milk in the morning,” Gonzalez explained to reporters.
“The bottle says that it kills ‘99.99% of most common germs’ so I tried to drink as much as I could,” Gonzalez told reporters.
Jimmy Gonzalez claims he suffered from fever and respiratory problems after ingesting the product.
“I called the hospital because I thought that I had coronavirus symptoms, but when they learned that I had drunk 16 gallons or more of hand sanitizer they told me to call an ambulance,” Gonzalez added.
Doctors say that Gonzalez may have developed an addiction to the product as he has admitted to having cravings for the product and was caught drinking a bottle at the hospital by a nurse.
A similar incident occurred last week when a Crystal meth and heroin user in Illinois injected hand sanitizer in his eyes to protect himself from the coronavirus but was instead hospitalized.