Play time turns into painful time for girls who played with spurge
11:05 a.m. Friday, October 10, 2008
Colorado Springs, Colo. — Myrtle spurge can be quite beautiful.
"You used to be able to buy it," Horticulturist Annelle Marshall said.
But you can't anymore.
Now, Marshall tells folks, "remove the plant."
Spurge could transform patches of skin into swollen, discolored blobs.
Danielle Sena and Tami Ekholm are two moms who each have three little girls, and on Oct. 6 something very bizarre happened.
"They looked like they had just blown up," Ekholm said.
The two women's oldest girls, Isabelle and Patty, say they were doing what children do, using their imaginations.
"We were pretending it could be like milk and we squeezed it out into a cup," Isabelle said.
They didn't know, but the milky white substance inside the plant is poisonous.
"I noticed my lips and tongue were really numb," Patty said.
"Our tongues were burning too," Isabella said.
And the spurge created painful sores on the girls' faces so much so that...
"I couldn't recognize her face Sunday morning," Sena said.
The parents quickly figured out the girls were playing with spurge, and somehow the girls had gotten its white sticky stuff all over their faces. Immediately they removed the myrtle spurge by hand, then went to the store, bought weed killer and zapped the roots out.
"In the last five years or so, it's been considered a noxious weed because it does over take a garden," Marshall said.
If you have myrtle spurge growing on your property it's recommended that you get rid of it as quickly as possible.
The girls' faces will heal without any scarring.
Their parents are urging other parents to check out what's in their yards.
As for the myrtle spurge, it is not native to Colorado, it doesn't require a lot of water and that's why some people liked planting them.
Myrtle spurge is also known as creeping spurge and donkey tail.
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