Report shows infant died from antihistamine overdose
HONOLULU — A toxicology test indicates an Oahu infant who died in the care of a babysitter had nearly double the concentration of an antihistamine in her blood than what is usually lethal for babies, officials said.
A Honolulu medical examiner determined 7-month-old Abigail Lobisch died in February from diphenhydramine toxicity.
Dixie D. Villa was charged with manslaughter in the child’s death and made her initial court appearance Monday in Honolulu District Court. Villa’s bail was set at $1 million, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Aug. 2.
Diphenhydramine is the active ingredient in Benadryl. Toxicology tests showed diphenhydramine at 2,400 ng/mL (nanograms per milliliter) in the child’s blood.
“The average blood diphenhydramine concentrations reported in fatal overdoses were 1,400 ng/mL in infants,” court documents said.
Villa was Lobisch’s babysitter for about four to five months, and the mother left the infant and her 2-year-old son in Villa’s care overnight Feb. 23. The mother told police the baby was healthy before she dropped her off.
Villa and the children spent the day at a pool, and she applied lotion on them for sunburn before they went to bed. She reported the child unresponsive the next morning and tried to revive the baby until emergency responders arrived, records said.
The unattended death was reclassified as manslaughter July 16 after Honolulu police received an autopsy report indicating the high diphenhydramine levels.
The antihistamine is used to relieve symptoms of allergy and hay fever. Young children should not be given diphenhydramine without consulting a doctor, the medical examiner’s report said.
Utility cuts power service to customers after outage
LIHUE, Kauai — Kauai Island Utility Cooperative is asking customers to conserve energy while it periodically cuts off their electrical service as it recovers from a widespread power outage, officials said.
The utility asked for voluntary energy reductions because of its limited generation capacity. The company planned to continue the use of rolling outages as needed through Tuesday morning, according to a statement.
An outage throughout Kauai on Sunday left the utility’s Kapaia power station and Wainiha hydro station inoperable. Several other units were down Monday at its Port Allen generation station for repair or scheduled maintenance, the company said.
“Weather is also playing a factor,” the company said Monday, noting an approaching storm is expected to “limit the productivity of our solar resources.”
Scheduled, rolling outages from 11:30 p.m. Sunday to 12:20 a.m. Monday affected service to 5,900 customers in Lawai, Anini, Puhi, Kapahi and Princeville.
Additional rolling outages between 6 and 7:30 a.m. Monday affected 10,000 customers in areas from Kekaha to Princeville, the company said.