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An Australian died last Friday (November 2nd), eight years after eating a slug on a challenge that left him paralyzed after waking up from a coma of 420 days.
In 2010, Mr. Sam Ballard was drinking wine with his friends when they challenged him to eat a slug crawling on his patio.
The ball that Mr. Ballard, then 19, ingested was infected with a parasitic worm found in rodents that could be transmitted to slugs, reported CNN.
A few days after ingesting the slug, he began to feel sick and to feel intense leg pain. He told his mother Katie Ballard that he had eaten a slug and his mother replied, "No, nobody gets sick of that."
Mr. Ballard contracted lungworm disease in rats.
According to CNN, humans can become infected with the disease if they eat contaminated, raw or undercooked animals or vegetables with infected snails or slugs that have not been thoroughly washed.
Drinks may also be contaminated with worms if left uncovered to allow snails and slugs to enter.
The disease comes from rats when a parasite gets lodged in their lungs and is then excreted in their feces. Animals such as slugs, snails, freshwater crabs, shrimps, prawns or frogs, which eat rat excrement or are infected directly by the worm, are then carriers of the parasite.
The website of the Australian health authorities indicates that the infection is extremely rare and that most people recover completely without treatment. But, on occasion, as in Mr. Ballard's case, the infection can be fatal.
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