An Australian dies nine years after eating a slug on his friends

An Australian died Friday, more than eight years after being paralyzed by eating a garden slug on a teenager challenge.

Sam Ballard, a 19-year-old star rugby player, was reportedly infected with rat lungworm after eating a slug during a friends' challenge at a "Wine Appreciation Night" in 2010.

"The conversation was started, you know," Should I eat it? "And Sam's gone," Jimmy Galvin told news.com.au. "Blow, that's how it happened.

Ballard did not get sick until a few days later, but eating the slug was quickly dismissed, and his mother told him that "no one was sick of this disease." causing his symptoms before being ruled out.

While contracting eosinophilic meningoencephalitis of the rat lungworm, he fell into a coma for 420 days and, due to brain damage, was paralyzed upon waking.

Nearly nine years after swallowing the slug, Ballard, 29, died at Sydney's Hornsby Hospital, according to Australian reports, surrounded by friends and his mother, Katie Ballard.

"He had his voice and he said" I like you "on several occasions to Katie," said a friend to 10 Daily.

"Sam was a real fighter and hero of his younger brother Joshua and his sister Melanie. He had an army of friends and families who loved and loved him and for which he was truly grateful, "said Ballard's online obituary. "His last days were the happiest and he was surrounded by a room full of love."