When kids are young, you think a lot about keeping things that could hurt them out of their hands.
As they get older, things like this are less of a consideration as you expect them to be reasonably responsible for themselves.
OP has four children, the oldest of whom has health issues that require hospital time and a PICC line for delivering pain meds and blood thinners on a regular basis.
I have 4 kids, Alexis (15), Lucas (12), Ronnie (11), and Allie (8). Alexis has a lot of health issues. We’ve been in and out of the hospital for months.
Something important to know is that Alexis has a picc line (big take home iv) and is getting blood thinner injections every day so we do have needles and vials around the house.
She also occasionally gets pain meds through her picc line.
One day his sister and her children came over. The older child (12) asked about a video they were watching, which was of his oldest being funny while drugged after a procedure.
My sister has 2 kids, Andrew (12) and Alyssa (9). She brought them to the house to play with my kids not too long ago.
Alexis had a minor procedure a couple days before they came. I was showing my sister a video of Alexis at the house right after the procedure.
She was still very high and it was hilarious (she’s fine with me showing family these videos). Andrew came into the kitchen, heard the video, and asked what it was.
I said that I was just showing his mom a video of alexis after she got some pain meds.
A few hours later the kids were grabbing a snack and Andrew took the container with needles and vials of the blood thinner out of the pantry. He asked what it is and I said it’s Alexis’s medicine.
When OP and his sister left to walk the dogs, her 12yo got into the syringes and injected himself, hoping to get high. He used blood thinners instead.
My sister and I left to take our dogs for a walk and I wanted to get a snack out of the pantry when we came back.
I noticed Alexis’s medicine box was moved so I looked at it and one of the blood thinner vials was a lot more empty than before and a needle/syringe was missing.
Sister and I interrogated all of the kids and we found out Andrew gave himself a high dose of the blood thinner because he thought it was her pain meds and he wanted to get high.
He ended up in the hospital overnight and his sister wants OP to pay the bill. He’s refusing because the kid was old enough to know better, but is it worth digging in if it causes a big rift?
My sister rushed Andrew to the hospital and he stayed overnight. Now she’s sending me the hospital bill because I was the one that left the medicine where he could get it.
I’m refusing to pay because if my 11 and 12 year old boys and 8 year old girl know not to touch other peoples medicines, her 12 year old should be able to see a vial and syringe and not drug himself.
She’s threatening to sue and I really don’t want to go the legal route with this.
AITA for not paying the hospital bills?
I’m curious where Reddit is going to come down on this one.
The top comment says it seems that his nephew has a bigger issue.
While this person thinks OP could take a petty road.
The nephew could very well need the wakeup call.
Everyone is pretty concerned about the kid.
They say intent absolutely matters here.
This is a pretty disturbing post, when you think about it.
I hope the sister got her son some help.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.