Reykjavik child injured by discarded needle

The boy found the needles adjacent to school grounds.

The boy found the needles adjacent to school grounds. Photo: Ómar Óskarsson

A Reykjavik child is undergoing blood tests and various prophylactic treatments after pricking himself on a hypodermic needle discarded near school grounds.

The child’s grandfather, Friðrik Bridde, alerted parents to the incident by means of a Facebook post, encouraging them to educate their children in the dangers of discarded needles and to “keep their eyes open”.

The child pricked up the needle and brought it home to show his mother, pricking himself in the hand in the process. “Adults would be scared to touch them, but children are more fearless and just pick them up without thinking,” warns Bridde in an interview with Morgunblaðið.

The child found the needle on an artificial turf field right next to the grounds of a central Reykjavik school.

Bridde also mentions in his post how he himself found two hypodermic needles in a car park near his central Reykjavik home just two days before. One of them was full of blood.

The child is said to be doing well and receiving excellent care at Reykjavik’s Children’s Hospital. Despite the ordeal, Bridde does not agree with some of the more hard-line talk on needle-users. “These are clearly very ill people, who need to be helped,” he says.

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