Ally Langdon couldn’t hold back the tears.
The A Current Affair host — herself a mother of two — sat across from Andrea and Paul Haynes, listening to a nightmare no parent should ever have to tell. Their 13‑year‑old daughter Esra had gone to a sleepover on a normal Friday night. She never came home.
What killed her wasn’t a car accident or a sudden illness. It was a can of deodorant.
A Sleepover That Ended in Cardiac Arrest
On March 31, Esra Haynes — described by her local football club as “determined, fun, cheeky and talented” — went to a friend’s house for what should have been an ordinary night in. She was a young athlete who raced BMX bikes with her brothers and led her team to a national aerobics championship in Queensland.
But that night, Esra took part in a deadly social media craze called “chroming” — inhaling toxic chemicals through the mouth or nose to get a quick high. She sniffed from a can of aerosol deodorant and went into cardiac arrest, sustaining irreparable brain damage.
“Come and Get Your Daughter”
Her father Paul recalled the phone call that changed everything: “We always knew where she was and we knew who she was with. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary… To get this phone call at that time of night, (it) was one of the calls no parent ever wants to have to receive, and we unfortunately got that call: ‘Come and get your daughter.'”
When Andrea arrived, paramedics were already trying to revive Esra. They told her mother something she’d never heard before: her daughter had been chroming.
Eight Days of Hope, Then a Devastating Choice
For eight days, Esra was kept on life support. Her heart and lungs were strong — maybe, just maybe, she would pull through.
Then doctors delivered the news no parent can prepare for: Esra’s brain was damaged “beyond repair”. Paul and Andrea were forced to make the unthinkable decision — to turn off the machines that were keeping their daughter alive.
They gathered family and friends at the hospital for final goodbyes. “It was a very, very difficult thing to do to such a young soul,” Paul said. “She was put onto a bed so we could lay with her. We cuddled her until the end.”
“Our Gut Was Ripped Out”
Esra died in early April. Her family — siblings Imogen, Seth, and Charlie — are “shattered”. Her parents are barely holding on.
“We haven’t been sleeping, we’ve hardly been eating, we haven’t been smiling — we’re not ourselves,” Paul admitted. “But it’s not just affected us, it’s the community as well.”
Speaking to a local news station, Paul added: “We’ve got the pictures in our mind which will never be erased, you know, of what we were confronted with. Our gut was ripped out.”
A Crusade to Save Other Kids
Before Esra’s death, Paul and Andrea had never even heard the word “chroming”.
Now, they’re on a mission to make sure every parent does. Chroming — which can cause seizures, heart attack, suffocation, coma, and organ failure — is dangerously easy for kids to do with everyday products like deodorant, paint, hairspray, and even permanent markers. Since 2009, it has been responsible for the deaths of multiple children across Australia and around the world.
“If we were educated and the word had been put out there, we would have had the discussion around our kitchen table for sure,” Paul said. “We need to ramp it up and let these kids find out the information first-hand, and not through friends, and not through social media — then they’re given the right advice off the bat.”
He urges parents to sit down with their children and start the conversation — gently, but urgently.
“We certainly didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
