Push for warning labels on BBQ gas bottles intensifies after SA teen dies

It’s been four months since Adrian Ryan’s son died almost instantly sniffing LPG from a BBQ gas bottle. Instead of waiting for another fatality, he’s taking warning to the street.

Port Lincoln father Adrian Ryan at Fishery Bay, where his son Paddy was learning to surf before his death by Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome. Picture: Robert Lang

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A Port Lincoln dad is handing out self-made ‘Inhalation can be fatal’ stickers in a frustrated attempt to stop more children like his son dying after sniffing gas from a common BBQ bottle.

Meanwhile local federal MP Rowan Ramsey told the Sunday Mail he is about to petition for a parliamentary inquiry into the need for national mandatory labelling of LPG gas bottles like the one used by 16-year-old Paddy Ryan.

Paddy died from heart failure minutes after inhaling LPG gas at a house party in February.

Since his death, Paddy’s father Adrian Ryan has been relentlessly lobbying for mandated health warnings for LPG products.

Paddy Ryan, 16, who died in February 2020 after inhaling gas from a BBQ cylinder.

Port Lincoln father Adrian Ryan with the self-made labels warning sniffing LPG gas can kill you.

Mr Ryan has revealed there are no clear guidelines on who is responsible for such labelling between various state and federal consumer and product safety, workplace and health authorities.

This month, he began handing out in public warning labels for locals to adhere to their BBQ gas bottles.

“We had 500 labels printed two weeks ago to immediately get the warning out to parents and our kids … that there are catastrophic consequences to what seems harmless but a little dangerous,” he said

“Most people said to me that until Paddy’s death they had never heard of this,” he said.

“So labelling will be very important in saving lives.”

Mr Ramsey said he will submit to parliament, which resumed earlier this month, a private member’s motion for an inquiry into sudden death sniffing syndrome from LPG.

The inquiry, he said, would make recommendations, which could include warning labels that inhalation can be fatal, similar to those already displayed on aerosol cans.

“If it saves one life then it’s worth it,” he said.

“I would expect that once the motion is submitted there will be members who will come up to me and say: ‘that’s happened in my electorate too’.”