Death by Plastic

In Manhattan last week Nancy Alverson, 31, left her 2 1/2-year-old daughter Lorraine in their Greenwich Village apartment while she went shopping. Back in "a few minutes," she found the child dead, apparently of suffocation, with her head swathed in the adhering layers of a plastic garment bag.

Lorraine Alverson's death came hard on the heels of warnings from the A.M.A. and the health commissioners of major cities that the filmy bags used to cover newly dry-cleaned garments should be kept away from children. So far, across the U.S. more than 30 deaths (including at least one adult suicide) have been blamed on the bags. Most victims have been young children, with four (aged four months to two years) in Arizona's Phoenix area alone. Reason for the concentration there is the low humidity: dry air increases the plastic's tendency to develop a charge of static electricity and adhere to anything around. After the bag covers a child's mouth and nose, he soon becomes too faint to coordinate his actions and pull away the sticky folds. Vomiting usually follows. Cause of death is believed to be inhalation of vomited matter, which blocks the air passages.

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