A family is
looking for answers after a father of three died 10 days after being dared to
eat a gecko at a party.
David
Dowell, who was 34, was dared to eat a gecko at a Christmas party on December 1
last year. After allegedly ingesting the animal, he continued to party before
heading home. Then, on Monday, December 3, he began to feel incredibly unwell.
"It was
coming out both ends," David's sister Hannah told The Sydney Morning
Herald (SMH). "He was really sick and the moment he started throwing up
and it was green, that’s when they rang the ambulance."
Doctors at
Brisbane's Mater Hospital, Australia, at first believed he had gastroenteritis
or a hangover and were ready to discharge him, the Independent reports.
However, the family insisted it wasn't that simple, and the doctors admitted
him. On Tuesday he was diagnosed with a Salmonella infection, which over the
next few days began to get worse.
Salmonella
causes around 1.2 million illnesses in the US every year. Most people develop
abdominal pains, vomiting, and diarrhea and recover within 4-7 days without
treatment. However, it can be more serious, with 23,000 hospitalizations and
450 deaths in the US annually. Hospitalizations are generally required when the
diarrhea is so severe it causes dehydration.
Salmonella
is generally caused by contaminated water or food, or occasionally people
getting a little too smoochy with hedgehogs. However, reptiles are also a known
source of the bacterial disease.
"Contact
with reptiles can be a source of human Salmonella infections," the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on their website after an
outbreak in 2015. "Reptiles can be carrying Salmonella bacteria but appear
healthy and clean and show no signs of illness."
Whether
David actually ate the gecko or merely handled it is unclear, with conflicting
reports from party-goers. His symptoms got worse, with his family reporting
that he was in agony before being put into a medically induced coma.
"His
testicles were swollen up to grapefruits and there was fluid leaking from
them," his mother told the SMH. "[The doctors] said that was normal,
it was just all of the fluid in his stomach cavity."
On Tuesday,
December 11, just 10 days after allegedly being dared to eat the gecko, David
died during surgery following mass organ failure. His family says they aren't
sure for certain what killed him, however, “on the actual death certificate, it
did say ingestion of a gecko, so I’m assuming it was that,” his partner Allira
Bricknell told 7News.
The family
has concerns and questions about how David was treated at the hospital, and are
now demanding answers, though they are not seeking a formal inquest.
They are
also using the attention on David's death to warn others that they should look
out for signs of Salmonella poisoning and realize how dangerous it can be for
the infected, so that other families don't have to go through the same ordeal.
Allira also
told anyone thinking of performing a similar stunt not to.
"We
never thought this would happen," she told 7News. "It was just a big
shock and it still is a big shock."
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