{"id":5169,"date":"2025-03-01T06:55:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T06:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/?p=5169"},"modified":"2025-03-01T06:55:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T06:55:50","slug":"man-ate-a-slug-after-a-dare-resulting-in-a-tragic-outcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/?p=5169","title":{"rendered":"Man ate a slug after a dare, resulting in a tragic outcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

A silly dare among a group of friends turned into a tragedy that left a young man paralyzed and then claimed his life.<\/p>\n

When 19-year-old Sam Ballard\u00a0gulped a slug after being dared by his friends, he never assumed his life would change for the worse.<\/h3>\n

Shortly\u00a0after the stunt, Ballard complained of leg pain, which doctors believed to be a multiple sclerosis, a disease his father suffered from. However, it was later determined that the young man contracted rat lungworm, a parasitic infection found in rodents that can also infect snails and slugs through the larvae in their feces.<\/p>\n

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Sam Ballard \/ Facebook<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

It didn\u2019t take long before the promising rugby player lost the ability to walk.<\/h2>\n

Speaking of the day Ballard made the tragic choice to eat that slug, one of his friends, Jimmy Galvin, recalled, \u201cWe were sitting, having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown-ups and a slug came crawling across.\u00a0The conversation came, \u2018should I eat it?\u2019 [and] off Sam went.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, the infection affected Ballard\u2019s brain. He contracted meningitis and was left in coma for 420 days. When he finally woke up, doctors determined he had brain damage.<\/p>\n

Over the years following the incident, he did regain some use of his limbs but still needed to be fed.<\/p>\n

\n
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Danny Aarons | News Corp Australia<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The disease hadn\u2019t affected his mental abilities, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s in there, 100%,\u201d Galvin told\u00a0The Sunday Project<\/em>. \u201cI apologized to Sam about everything that happened that night in the backyard. And he just started bawling his eyes out. I know he\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, Sam Ballard passed away eight years after gulping the snail and contracting the awful disease.<\/h2>\n

His obituary read: \u201cSam was a true battler and hero to his younger brother Joshua and sister Melanie. He had an army of friends and family who have loved and cared for him for which he was truly grateful.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis last days were the happiest and he was surrounded by a room full of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please SHARE this article with your family and friends on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A silly dare among a group of friends turned into a tragedy that left a young man paralyzed and then claimed his life. When 19-year-old Sam Ballard\u00a0gulped a slug after being dared by his friends, he never assumed his life would change for the worse. Shortly\u00a0after the stunt, Ballard complained of leg pain, which doctors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-random-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5170,"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5169\/revisions\/5170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buzzfeednews.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}