A teenager was left paralysed and suffered a horrific death after eating a slug for a dare at a birthday party.
Promising young rugby player Sam Ballard, from Sydney in Australia, was drinking at a friend’s house when they spotted the creepy crawly on the patio.
The then 19-year-old ate the slug after being egged on by his mates – unaware it was infected with the deadly rat lungworm disease.
Typically found in rodents, the parasite passes its larvae into the animals’ faeces which can then spread to snails and slugs.
Sam didn’t become ill immediately, but complained of serious pains in his legs in the days after the party in 2010, reports the Mirror.
He was concerned it might have been a consequence of eating the slug, but his mum told him that “no one gets sick from that”.
Sam eventually contracted a brain infection and lapsed into a coma for 420 days before doctors were able to revive him.
He was paralysed from the neck down after waking up and suffered seizures, struggled to regulate his body temperature, and had to be tube fed.
He passed away at the age of 28 in 2018, “surrounded by his family and loyal, loving mates”.
Describing the night of the party in 2010, his friend Jimmy previously told The Project: “We were sitting, having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown-ups and a slug came crawling across. The conversation came up, ‘Should I eat it?’ Off Sam went. Bang. That’s how it happened.”
Michael Sheasby, a close friend, recounted the shock of seeing Sam in hospital for the first time after the party. He said: “When I walked in, he was very very gaunt, and there were cables everywhere – it was a big shock.”
The last words Sam ever spoke to his mother Katie were “I love you”.
Despite the devastating impact on her family, Katie does not hold his friends responsible for the dare, stating they were simply “being mates”. After his initial discharge from hospital, Katie shared on Facebook that her son remained “still the same cheeky Sam, and laughs a lot”.
However, she confessed that “it’s devastated, changed his life forever, changed my life forever. It’s huge. The impact is huge.”
In the final years of Sam’s life, Katie tirelessly fought for adequate care for her son. Initially, the Australian government provided an equivalent of £234,000 under its disability insurance scheme, which was reviewed in 2017 and reduced by over 50 percent.
Sam’s family and friends rallied for additional funding, and ultimately, the decision was reversed.
