Meet Ashley Summers, a 35-year-old mother of two from Indiana, who faced an unusual challenge with water. Little did she know that her struggle to quench her thirst would lead to a fatal outcome—a rare condition known as water toxicity caused by excessive water consumption.
Ashley Summers/FB
This happened while she was at Lake Freeman with her husband and two young daughters during the Fourth of July weekend.
“Someone said she drank four bottles of water in 20 minutes,” her brother Devon Miller told WRTV.
“I mean, an average water bottle is 16 ounces, so that was 64 ounces that she drank in 20 minutes. That’s half a gallon. That’s what you’re supposed to drink in a whole day.”
During the final day of their trip, the mom started feeling like she couldn’t drink enough water.
Her family noticed that she was feeling lightheaded and had a persistent headache.
Facebook / Ashley Summers
“My sister, Holly, called me, and she was just an absolute wreck. She was like, ‘Ashley is in the hospital. She has brain swelling, they don’t know what’s causing it, they don’t know what they can do to get it to go down, and it’s not looking good,'” said Miller.
Upon returning from the trip, Summers collapsed in her garage, and her family rushed her to IU Health Arnett Hospital.
Unfortunately, she never woke up again, and the doctors informed her family that she had passed away due to water toxicity.
“It was a shock to all of us. When they first started talking about water toxicity. It was like; This is a thing?” Miller recalled.
According to Dr. Blake Froberg, a toxicologist at the hospital, this uncommon cause of death is more likely to happen during the summer or if someone spends a lot of time working outside or exercising regularly.
Unsplash
Froberg emphasized the importance of consuming beverages that contain electrolytes, sodium, and potassium. He said, “There are certain things that can make someone more at risk for it, but the overall thing that happens is that you have too much water and not enough sodium in your body,”
Water toxicity symptoms include feeling unwell, experiencing muscle cramps, soreness, nausea, and headaches.
Summers’ family mentioned that she was an organ donor and could donate her heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, and some long bone tissue. Her generous donation saved five other lives.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn