Students caught with homemade tattoos, piercings

Guam - A new trend has surfaced in the island's public schools - homemade tattoos and piercings. And school officials are getting the word out in hopes this new trend does not result in our youth being put in the hospital.

Body art or tattooing has been around for centuries, and today there are some extreme safety rules in place before anyone can get a tattoo. Evidently that's not the case for students at one local high school who were caught with this backyard tattoo machine. "We have recent piercing and tattooing, so I went ahead and relayed that information to our safety administrator as well as other principals to give them a heads up, it's a new thing again," said George Washington High School assistant principal Gaylene Cruz. "I guess kids are learning it from YouTube, we have a homemade tattoo machine, and kids are having access to piercing so they are soliciting."

Cruz says a student was caught with this homemade tattoo machine made out of a led pencil, guitar string, a small motor, a couple "D" batteries and tape. "It's a safety issue," she said. "You have to be certified to this and if you get an infection then someone could die from a serious infection...the biggest health risk is hepatitis and tuberculosis, those are all spores and they are not killed by alcohol, you need and anti-tubercular to clean and disinfect all your areas. They can live on a surface for a year and that's probably the biggest health risk, the other risk is just bad tattoos."

Kilgore T. Jr. has been a tattoo artist for the past seven years. She knows all too well about the dangers of backyard tattooing, and the possible contamination and health risks it imposes on others. She warns the youth about this particular device found in the school. "They come with finishes on the metal and you put that into your body, there is no way to clean out inside the ballpoint pen. If you have any residual ink or something then that's going into your body and its not a good idea."

While school officials are working to get a handle on this latest buzz, Kilgore says anyone using these devices are definitely not looking for a career in the tattoo industry, adding, "They are pretty much ruining there chance of ever working at a tattoo shop, nobody's going tot hire them, but they are making job security for me because I can cover up the bad tattoo's hopefully they don't really hurt anybody that's the tragedy of it especially if they are throwing needles and used machines in the trash."

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