Is it at all possible to live after drinking bleach?

[Ms Music]

Is it at all possible to live after drinking bleach? A friend of a friend of a friend... tried to kill herself with a bag of pills and a bottle of bleach. Medics found her and resuscitated her, she has been in the hospital in critical care for about 12 hours. I am wondering if it is at all possible for her to live and heal, or will her insides eventually rot? I guess she vomited on all the medics when she was revived, not sure if that is beneficial or not to the story as it would burn everything a second time.

Remember, this isn't someone I know, so advice won't help. I just want to know if anyone has lived through something like this. I have no idea what quantity was, or what pills she took.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jim mcnamara]

This cites the LD50 for sodium hypochlorite (the active ingredient in household bleach) as 5800mg/kg for rats.
http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9925000 LD50 means the dose in mg required to kill 50% of the subjects given the chemical in question. Assuming rats and humans respond about the same way.

So the person swallowed about 1 quart of 5% bleach solution. One quart of water is ~943g, so let's assume 5% of the mass is from sodium hypochlorite. That gives about 48g of sodium hypochlorite; divide by 5.8 gives about 8.1 kg. Assume the woman was 50kg. She got enough chemical to be fatal maybe 1 time in 10.

However.

Vomiting reduced the dose as well. The side effects of lesser doses include severe nausea and damage to epithelial linings (stomach, esophagus, and mouth burns).

I did not find any clinical data for people, just severe warnings. For dogs:
http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/vetmed/Medicine/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/483498

Someone else may be able to find some clinical data.

Basically it is hard to kill yourself outright with a dose of 5% bleach solution.

 

[256bits]

This gives some info on exposure.
http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1194947380553

It says ingestion of up to up to 200ml for adults / 50ml for children of <10% solution usually has minimal effect.

The paper falls in with what Jim stated, that it is mildly toxic as a houshold bleach solution.

 

[Ms Music]

Thank you Jim and 256. That was interesting to read. I had no idea that bleach would be basically "mildly toxic". But then for that matter, I had never heard of it being used for suicide either. I can be rather naive at times. All I know is how difficult it is to wash off your hands, so it must stick to the insides pretty well also.

The last I heard a few days ago, she did live through the weekend, and they were going to release her Monday or Tuesday. I assume by now she has been released, but I have no idea.

 

[SteamKing]

This is a case where 'the dose makes the poison'. Because household bleach is rather dilute, the damage if taken internally is minimal if proper treatment is rendered immediately. If a stronger solution of sodium hypochlorite had been ingested, the damage could have been more serious, even with prompt treatment.