Amid heatwave conditions in the US, a 35-year-old woman in Indiana died after she consumed nearly two litres of water in four bottles in 20 minutes. The woman complained of a headache and felt lightheaded, before collapsing in the garage of her home.
A 35-year-old US woman died after she drank about two litres of water in a span of 20 minutes amid heatwave conditions in the country.
Her death was due to water toxicity, a condition caused when one drinks excessive amounts of water in a short period of time, and such cases can be fatal.
The victim, Ashley Summers, was out at Lake Freeman in Indiana over the Fourth of July weekend with her husband and two young daughters when she started feeling severely dehydrated, New York Post reported.
“Someone said she drank four bottles of water in 20 minutes,” her brother Devon Miller told WRTV. “I mean, an average water bottle is like 16 ounces, so that was 64 ounces that she drank in a span of 20 minutes. That’s half a gallon. That’s what you’re supposed to drink in a whole day.”
Summers later complained of headache and feeling lightheaded on the last day of their break. When the family returned home, the woman felt she could not drink water anymore and collapsed in the garage.
After Summers fell unconscious, her family rushed her to IU Health Arnett Hospital. But, she never came back to her senses, with the doctors declaring that she died due to water toxicity.
“My sister, Holly, called me, and she was just an absolute wreck. She was like, ‘Ashley is in the hospital. She has brain swelling, they don’t know what’s causing it, they don’t know what they can do to get it to go down, and it’s not looking good,’” said Miller, the woman’s brother.