2 teenagers dead, 2 sickened from drinking racing fuel, soda

On Thursday, authorities were called to the Franklin Farms home of 16-year-old Logan Stephenson, who was found dead in his bed.

“His hands started drawing up”. Police say the second boy died Monday afternoon. Speculation rampant on Internet Were the teens under the impression that mixing racing fuel, known to contain alcohol, and Mt. Dew would give them a “buzz?”

The “Dewshine”-drinking deaths are believed to be Tennessee’s first, said Donna Seger, medical director of the Tennessee Poison Center and a professor of clinical medicine at Vanderbilt University”.

Logan Stephenson and some of his friends made a decision to drink the gasoline and soda when “they noticed the color of [Logan’s] skin had changed and he started having a seizure”.

Police are waiting for autopsy reports from the medical examiner’s office that will determine cause of death, Smith said. While the city mourns the loss of two teens, Seger said she hopes to reach others with a warning.

Some racing fuels are a methanol blend and some are 100 percent methanol. “They thought they would get the same effects as alcohol, but they weren’t aware of how toxic it was”.

“It’s affecting things on the cellular level”, Seger said.

“I think it was just a very unfortunate accident that happened”, she said. However, methanol poses significantly higher levels of toxicity, and is probably the high the teens were after.

So far, two high school students from Greenbrier, Tennessee, have died after drinking the so-called “Dewshine”, but there are at least four cases reported so far.

Now, less than a week later and on the day that Stephenson will be laid to rest, the second teen has died and police and the community are searching for answers.

“Ask your children”, the police chief says in a plea for more information.

A GoFundMe page has been set up for Stephenson.