A silly dare among a group of friends turned into a tragedy that left a young man paralyzed and then claimed his life.
When 19-year-old Sam Ballard gulped a slug after being dared by his friends, he never assumed his life would change for the worse.
Shortly after the stunt, Ballard complained of leg pain, which doctors believed to be a multiple sclerosis, a disease his father suffered from. However, it was later determined that the young man contracted rat lungworm, a parasitic infection found in rodents that can also infect snails and slugs through the larvae in their feces.
It didn’t take long before the promising rugby player lost the ability to walk.
Speaking of the day Ballard made the tragic choice to eat that slug, one of his friends, Jimmy Galvin, recalled, “We were sitting, having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown-ups and a slug came crawling across. The conversation came, ‘should I eat it?’ [and] off Sam went.”
Sadly, the infection affected Ballard’s brain. He contracted meningitis and was left in coma for 420 days. When he finally woke up, doctors determined he had brain damage.
Over the years following the incident, he did regain some use of his limbs but still needed to be fed.
The disease hadn’t affected his mental abilities, however.
“He’s in there, 100%,” Galvin told The Sunday Project. “I apologized to Sam about everything that happened that night in the backyard. And he just started bawling his eyes out. I know he’s there.”
Sadly, Sam Ballard passed away eight years after gulping the snail and contracting the awful disease.
His obituary read: “Sam was a true battler and hero to his younger brother Joshua and sister Melanie. He had an army of friends and family who have loved and cared for him for which he was truly grateful.
“His last days were the happiest and he was surrounded by a room full of love.”