A 35-year-old American mother of two has been confirmed dead after drinking roughly 64 ounces of water in just 20 minutes.
Ashley Summers died from water toxicity shortly after spending a leisurely day at Lake Freeman over the long Fourth of July weekend.
On the last day of her trip, she felt lightheaded and had a headache, symptoms of dehydration, but no amount of water could satiate her thirst. She drank the equivalent of four 16oz (500ml) bottles, according to Mail Online.
When Ms. Summers returned home, she collapsed in her garage, having suffered severe brain swelling. She never regained consciousness.
At the hospital, doctors diagnosed her with water toxicity, also called hyponatremia, which develops as a result of there being too much water in the body and not enough sodium.
When Devon Miller, Ms. Summers’ brother, heard of his sister’s condition, he was in disbelief. He said: ‘It was a big shock to us all. I was just like, this is a thing?’
Mr. Miller added: ‘She just felt like she couldn’t get enough water… When they left the sand bar to when they got to the dock, it was about a 20 minute boat ride … she drank four bottles of water in that 20 minutes.’
The Summers family visited Lake Freeman, a popular summer destination located about 80 miles north of Indianapolis, on a weekend holiday boat excursion.
The family had been vacationing at the spot from Saturday, July 1, through Tuesday, July 4.
It was on Tuesday morning that Ms. Summers’ family said she was feeling dehydrated and could not drink enough water to quench her thirst.
On Tuesday evening, Mr. Miller got a disturbing call about Ashley from his other sister. She had collapsed in her garage and was taken to the Indiana University Health Arnett Hospital.
He said: ‘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.”
Ms Summers never regained consciousness and doctors diagnosed her with water poisoning, or hyponatraemia.
