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How swallowing a slug left a teenager paralysed

Credits: Flickr / William Warby

An Australian teenage rugby player accepted what he thought was a simple dare: to eat a garden slug. However, the consequences were devastating. A parasitic infection in fact led to a serious brain illness, leaving him completely paralysed. 

It was in 2010, and Sam Ballard was only 19 years old. His rugby friends dared him to eat a live snail in the course of a night out. Bad idea: the snail was a carrier of the roundworm parasite –Angiostrongylus cantonensis. These parasites generally infect rats, but during the first stages of their life cycle, they can be carried by slugs and snails, who eat rat droppings. They can then infect people who eat the infected slugs or snails, if they have not been well cooked. The consequences for the young man were sadly very serious, and he remains completely paralysed to this day.

Most of the time, people who are infected recover without any ill effects after a couple of days. Sam’s case was different, because his brain was affected. The young man fell into a 420 day long coma. Upon awakening, he was quadriplegic and unable to complete the simplest of daily tasks for himself. Now, at the age of 28, he has regular attacks, he is fed through a tube and his body is unable to regulate its temperature. His medical costs are extremely expensive. Recently, his disability insurance plan was reduced from 492,000 Australian dollars (a little over 300,000 euro) to around 135,000 dollars (85,000 euro). His family have now accumulated enormous debt. The Australian minister who is responsible for health care indicated that he is working “in close collaboration” with the family to find a solution.

Remember that as well as snails and slugs, Angiostrongylus cantonensis can also infect frogs, terrestrial crabs and freshwater shrimp. The infection can thus be transmitted to humans if the animals are consumed raw or insufficiently cooked, according to the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). You generally do not present with any symptoms, or else with benign, short term symptoms such as fever, headaches, stiffness in the neck or nausea and vomiting. The parasite generally dies all by itself, even without treatment. In certain very rare cases, such as this one, the infection can lead to serious disruption of the nervous system, leading to paralysis or even death.

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