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One night, a 17-year-old boy in Australia is on a trip with his football team.
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He spots a little slug and doesn't think too much of it when his friends dare him to eat it.
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He says that it won't kill him, then picks it up and swallows it.
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In some countries, raw snails are a delicacy, known as escargot.
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So, a live slug should be fine to eat, right? How bad could it be?
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But, suddenly, he feels tired and has severe pain in his legs.
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His body shuts down and he is rushed to the hospital where he goes into a coma.
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Doctors give the boy a one in 17 million chance of living.
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He wakes up a month later, having lost 100 pounds.
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But this was only the beginning of his nightmare.
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Let's get into it.
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One night in 2010 in Sydney, Australia, a group of young men were on the patio.
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Having a red wine appreciation night.
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And trying to behave more like adults.
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One of them, Sam Ballard, was a strong athlete and promising rugby player.
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As the party went on, they spotted a garden slug making its way across the patio.
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Sparking a bit of banter between them.
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They started talking about a dare to eat the slug, and Sam accepted the challenge.
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It was a small, innocent little creature, just like any other common slug.
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So, he picked it up and popped it into his mouth.
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Sam's life went on for a few days without any issues.
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But then he started feeling severe pain in his legs.
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He asked his mom, Katie Ballard, whether it could have anything to do with the slug he had eaten.
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No one gets sick from that, his mother reassured him.
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However, his condition getting worse, Sam went to the doctor.
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And was diagnosed with a condition called rat lungworm.
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Medical professionals confirmed that he had probably gotten it from eating the slug.
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Unfortunately, the condition infected Sam's brain and caused a rare form of meningitis.
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And fell into a coma with his worried mother by his side.
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Sam was infected with a parasitic roundworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis.
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Commonly called rat lungworm.
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The disease can only fully mature inside the lungs of rats, which is where it gets its nickname from.
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Infected rats passed the larvae of the parasite in their feces, which can then be eaten up by snails and slugs.
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Who, in turn, get infected.
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The larvae grow while inside the snails and slugs, but do not fully mature yet.
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Their life cycle finishes when rats end up eating infected snails or slugs, and the larvae reach full adulthood inside the rats.
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The disease can cause meningitis, which, in general, is an inflammation of the membrane around our brain and spinal cord.
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The rare type of meningitis that Sam got from his exposure to the infected slug, called eosinophilic meningoencephalitis.
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Can cause permanent brain damage, nerve damage, and death.
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When Sam finally woke up from his coma, a full 420 days later, he was unrecognizable.
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He had suffered brain damage and was paralyzed, needed tubes to eat, and was only able to move with intense effort.
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The strong rugby player, once considered invincible by his mother, now needed expensive around-the-clock medical care.
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After staying in a Sydney hospital for three years, Sam was released in a wheelchair.
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He still needed 24/7 care, and his friends had to fundraise money to help his family afford it.
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Though, they still struggled to get by.
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It turns out that, not far away, an eerily similar story happened to another teenager in Australia.
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In 2008, Liam Mcguigan, a high school senior from Brisbane, was on a school football trip.
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One of his classmates offered him $10 if he ate a slug.
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Liam responded, it won't kill me.
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Like Sam, he ate the innocent-looking creature and felt just fine.
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At first.
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It took a little while, but soon, 17-year-old Liam began to feel extremely tired.
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And his muscles stopped working.
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At the hospital, doctors thought the issue might be his appendix.
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They removed it, but within hours, Liam's temperature rocketed as his body shut down.
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They removed his clothes and covered him in ice to try and reduce his temperature.
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Alarmingly, he fell into a coma.
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Doctors at the hospital pumped Liam's body full of steroids.
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And told his mother to plan his funeral.
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He was given a one in 17 million chance of living.
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Then, four weeks after going into a coma, he woke up.
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100 pounds lighter than before.
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But alive.
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Liam had to relearn how to do everything again.
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Eating, talking, and walking.
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But eventually, he repeated his final year of high school and regained 99% of his old life.
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Liam was always thankful for his recovery.
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But one day, sobering news came out that let him know how lucky he truly was.
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After eight years of living with his condition, Sam Ballard had died, surrounded by 20 of his closest family and friends.
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His last words were to his mother, and he said, I love you.
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Humans are incidental hosts of this roundworm, which means that the parasite is not really looking to get to you.
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But if it happens to find itself in your body, it'll make itself at home in your central nervous system.
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While it's not contagious, the infection can spread to people when food containing the larvae stage of the worms is consumed.
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Snails and slugs are the most common culprit for carrying these small creatures.
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And parts of them can be hidden in raw produce as well.
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It's believed that the mucus left behind by snails, slugs, and other gastropods can cause infection.
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Though, according to CDC, the science on this is not clear.
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For example, if a slug crawls across your lettuce, you didn't wash it properly.
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And then eat it raw.
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While most of these carriers are small, the giant African land snail.
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Which can grow larger than a human hand can be infected.
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Yikes.
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There have been incidents of the larvae of this parasite being found in some other animals, like centipedes, freshwater shrimp, crabs, and frogs.
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It's possible that eating infected creatures raw or undercooked could result in people becoming infected.
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But there isn't a lot of clear evidence.
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However, fish are not known to spread this parasite.
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So, keep eating as much sushi as your heart desires.
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And if you're a fan of escargot, a French or d'oeuvre made with snails cooked in garlic and parsley butter.
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Cooking kills the parasite, so there's no need to worry.
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Well, at least about rat lungworm.
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So, please continue to enjoy your delicacy.
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However, an attempt to introduce escargot into Brazil did lead to a case of A cantonensis.
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In the late 1980s, many Brazilians bought home kits for giant African snails to sell escargot.
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Hoping the dish would take off in the country.
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It turns out that Brazilians aren't huge fans of escargot, and the business was short-lived.
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Unfortunately, the entrepreneurial attempt led to the giant African snails becoming an invasive species in Brazil.
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They made themselves at home, leading to cases of rat lungworm and two incidents of meningitis.
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Most known cases of infection have been in parts of Asia and the Pacific Islands.
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But there have also been reports in the Caribbean, Africa, and Hawaii.
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In one incident in Hawaii's Big Island, Kane Tauanuu, a baby less than one year old.
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Was diagnosed with A cantonensis.
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The 17th infection case in the state that year.
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Kane's mother, Santini, said that their home is surrounded by slugs who tend to come out after it rains.
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She believes that her baby was crawling around outside and might have accidentally eaten a slug.
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Santini had begged the ER doctors over and over to give Kane a blood test.
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She could tell this was no ordinary condition.
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But Kane had to suffer for nine days before his mother's insistence won out.
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She refused to go home again without a blood test.
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And her intuition was right.
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Because children can't always communicate their symptoms.
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The infection presents differently than in adults.
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Crying a lot, a bad temper, mood swings, tiredness, and other behavior changes are common.
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According to his mother, Kane was developmentally delayed after his recovery.
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She says that at 16 months old, he was developed as a one-year-old.
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But he is a happy, loving, joyful baby whose parents are extra careful now when it comes to preventing incidents.
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Another case involving a young patient, only seven years old, happened in Japan.
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Bliss Scott was an American girl in the first grade at an elementary school in Okinawa.
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She had touched a giant African land snail and then suffered from bad headaches.
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Blood tests were taken to try and find out what was causing her so much pain.
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The results brought terrible news.
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Bliss was suffering from rat lungworm.
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All they could do was hope the disease didn't progress too far.
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But the infection reached her brain, and Bliss developed meningoencephalitis.
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Tragically, the young girl lost her life to the parasite.
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Diagnosing this disease involves analyzing these symptoms as well as travel and exposure to animals like snails and slugs.
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Blood tests can be tricky to secure.
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But a PCR test can also detect A cantonensis.
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Inside the human body, the A cantonensis larvae cannot grow or reproduce.
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So the parasite dies over time, even with no treatment.
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Those who go on to develop eosinophilic meningoencephalitis don't usually need antiparasitics.
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But symptoms can last for weeks or months as the immune system reacts to the dying parasites.
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The most common symptom of this meningitis is a headache.
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Which occurs in all mild cases.
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Other signs include photophobia, light sensitivity, stiffness in the neck, sensitivity to touch, tingling, pain, facial paralysis, muscle fatigue, and vomiting.
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Most treatments are to treat symptoms of infection, such as pain medication for headaches.
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Or medication to reduce the body's reaction to the parasites.
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Like the ice covering Liam when his raging fever struck.
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A severe case might be indicated by a high fever and severe headaches, as well as paralysis, pain along areas of skin, vertigo, blindness, and a coma.
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Symptoms will usually flare up one to three weeks after being exposed to the parasite.
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But the duration depends on the severity of the case.
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Normally lasting between two to eight weeks.
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People who do get infected with this roundworm actually don't need any treatment in most cases.
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Some cases don't have any symptoms while others only display mild symptoms that don't last long.
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And if patients progress to a severe case of meningitis like Liam's, treatment will vary on a case-by-case.
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While cases of death by snail are rare, it's important to be very safe with what you eat.
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And follow a few simple guidelines.
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Don't ever eat raw or undercooked critters that can carry this roundworm.
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And wash your fruits and veggies carefully, especially leafy vegetables like lettuce.
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Remember to wash your hands after possible exposure and before you eat.
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And if you're traveling in an area where the parasite is common, avoid eating uncooked vegetables.
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Finally, if you see a giant African land snail around, it's best to admire it from afar and not touch it.
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Unless you want to become an escargot.
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