A civic official in India was seen accidentally drinking hand sanitiser instead of water at a public meeting, with cameras capturing the unfortunate moment on film.
Ramesh Pawar had been at a budget committee hearing when he reached for what he thought was a bottle of water.
Pawar – who is the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Deputy Municipal Commissioner – had been at a presentation in western India’s Maharashtra in Mumbai on 3 February.
He sat down and picked up the bottle in front of him, knocking it back to take a gulp – which was when he realised what it was.
An onlooker had also noticed what was happening and rushed over to alert Pawar, but didn’t manage to make it over in time to stop the first sip.
Thankfully, he seemed to see the funny side of the incident and smiled sheepishly as others checked he was okay.
While Pawar only appeared to drink a tiny amount of hand sanitiser before he was stopped, some people haven’t been so lucky.
Last August, officials in the US warned people not to drink hand sanitiser after four people died and others were left with vision problems.
Fifteen people were admitted to hospital in Arizona and New Mexico earlier in 2020, according to a report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The 13 men and two women were aged between 21 and 65, and had each drunk a hand sanitiser containing methanol, an ingredient the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls ‘not acceptable’.
