Former rugby players are dead after eating a snail

That was in 2010, Sam Ballard, 19, was at a party at home with a friend in Sydney, Australia – and was challenged to eat a snail that crawled.

A common garden nail.

Sam took on the challenge.

A few days later, Sam fell very sick. It turned out that he received a parasitic roundworm that usually lives in the rat's pulmonary arteries – hence its name "rat lungworm" – but can also be found in the snails that eat stool from mice and rats. These roundworms can be harmful to humans as they can cause a form of meningitis.

Danger of infection in the brain

Immediately after, Sam suffered a brain infection followed by a simple meningitis. He was in a coma for 420 days.

In total, Sam was forced to spend three years in the hospital after the evening in the evening.

But his life did not save. After eight years of fighting the disease, Sam died last week, surrounded by relatives and friends, writes News News.

The heavily indebted family

The family says she's now in debt because of the medical care she receives from her son. At the same time, the family has also lost much of the financial contribution of the Australian state to which Sam is entitled.

According to Australian Daily Telegraph, Sam and his family would receive the equivalent of 3.4 million euros.

An amount that was then reduced to 800.00 only, without proper explanation.

READ MORE: 19-year-old snail at a friend's house party – Has been invalidated