GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Larissa was only a year old when elevated levels of lead were found in her blood.
“I still didn’t know enough about it until all these years later and I’m thinking to myself she might not have not risen to her full potential if this hadn’t been taken care of,” her mother Lyree Adams of Grand Rapids said.
Lead exposure in children can cause developmental disorders. After the crisis in Flint, most people think of tainted water from old pipes as the source of exposure; but in Grand Rapids, it’s usually lead-based paint. In Larissa’s case, it was the windows.
“The dust from the windows, lifting and closing the windows, was creating a dust and she was crawling at the time, putting her hands in her mouth,” Adams explained.
Adams and her family were able to get windows replaced at their apartment and her daughter’s blood lead levels are now zero. Larissa, now 12, is healthy.