A 4 year-old is in intensive care in Guangzhou after he drank up to half a bottle of baijiu that his grandmother had hidden under a bed on Aug. 30. The family have already spent 23,000 RMB on medical treatment and doctors say that if he pulls through he may be paralysed or in a vegetative state for the rest of his life, Southern Metropolis Daily reports.

The boy’s father, Lao Lin, is a migrant worker from Sichuan and the family lives in rented accommodation near Wanggang in Baiyun District. Lao Lin, his wife and his mother all habitually drink baijiu. At around 10 a.m. on Aug. 30, when the toddler Xiao Long’s grandmother was supervising him, she took two sips of a bottle of baijiu in her bedroom and left the bottle under her bed.

She went into the kitchen to wash rice and, ten minutes later, discovered Xiao Long lying face down on the bedroom floor. His skin had already turned red and the baijiu bottle was half empty. Her first move was to get some wet cloths to try to bring his temperature down.

It wasn’t until 6 p.m. that she deemed the situation serious enough to merit calling Lao Lin at work. When Lao Lin and his wife got home at 7 p.m., they rushed him to hospital and his situation was so serious that he was transferred twice, ending up in the Guangdong Province Maternity and Children’s Hospital.

Xiao Long has been in the intensive care unit the whole time and his father has barely left his bed side. Even though the family will struggle to pay his medical fees, having been hit hard by the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008, Lao Lin says he will do everything he can for his son no matter what.