Kathleen Wong had only been in the door of her parents' house for a few minutes.
A very protective mother of three young children, by her own admission, Wong always makes sure her home is safe.
But this wasn't her house. Unbeknown to her, the nature of the surprise visit to grandma and grandad, meant there was medication for her diabetic father sitting out in the open.
Before any of the adults even had a chance to sweep the place clean of the usual dangers, Wong's youngest - two-year-old Kiana - had managed to climb atop a chair and start playing with her grandad's pretty coloured pills.
"I saw her putting something down and then I noticed she'd taken a bite out of something," recalled Wong, of Richmond.
"She'd taken a bite out of one of the pills that decrease the glucose levels in the body.
For a child who's not diabetic, it could have been fatal."
Wong admitted she was in shock at first, thinking to herself, "What do I do here?"
"It's not like she was choking, there was nothing physically I could do to help.
"The first thing that I thought was that I didn't have to go to emergency. We phoned the poison centre and they told us to get to emergency (at Children's Hospital) right away as this was a huge concern."
At the hospital, Kiana was given sugar popsicles to make sure her sugar levels didn't drop.
"Some parents might have thought, 'She's not diabetic, it doesn't matter,'" said Wong.
"But this one did matter, it could have killed her. The problem is that lots of candies look like medicine and it happened so quick.
"The whole thing was a huge wake-up call, especially when I realized it could have been fatal."
Wong is sharing her story as part of a safety video being released by Children's Hospital to help make more parents and people without kids aware of the dangers.
"I'm the parent of three children and I'm sometimes overly cautious, so I was so surprised how quickly this happened, that's why I want to warn people," added Wong.
"You can make your own place as safe as possible, but when you go to other people's places, that's not always the case, because they're perhaps not used to having children around.
"I would like to make others aware, put your medication out of the way."
It's hoped the DVD, called Give Your Child a Safe Start, will go some way to dealing with child injuries, the leading cause of death among Canadian children and youth.
Preventable injuries - falls, burns, choking and poisonings - are the most common cause of hospital visits for young children in Canada.
Each year, approximately 2,900 infants, toddlers and preschoolers under five years of age go to BC Children's Hospital's emergency department for treatment of preventable injuries.
The 30-minute video includes powerful stories from parents and caregivers whose children were injured, often in a split second.
Give Your Child a Safe Start can be viewed at www.bcchildrens.ca/safestart.
