Sam Ballard, Rugby Player Who Swallowed Garden Slug, Passes Away

Zachary Stieber
By Zachary Stieber
November 5, 2018World News
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Sam Ballard, Rugby Player Who Swallowed Garden Slug, Passes Away
A slug in a file photo. (Hawaii Department of Health.)

The teenage rugby player who swallowed a garden slug on a dare in 2010 and became disabled as a result has passed away.

“The Sunday Project’s” Lisa Wilkinson announced the news, writing in a column later that Sam Ballard died at Hornsby Hospital on Nov. 2.

“He had his voice and he said ‘I love you’ several times to Katie,” a friend told Wilkinson about Ballard’s final moments.

His mother Katie was there along with several friends. He was 29 years old.

Swallowing a Slug

Jimmy Galvin was with Ballard when he swallowed the slug in a backyard after he was dared to do so. Ballard was 19 at the time.

“We were sitting over here, having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grownups, and a slug came crawling across here,” Galvin told the Sunday Project. “The conversation came up, ‘Should I eat it?’ Off Sam went. Bang. That’s how it happened.”

Shortly after Ballard fell ill and was rushed to a nearby hospital.

Doctors there diagnosed him with rat lungworm.

Rat Lungworm

Rat lungworm, or angiostrongyliasis, is a disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, according to the Hawaii Department of Health.

“It is caused by a parasitic nematode (roundworm parasite) called Angiostrongylus cantonensis. The adult form of A. cantonensis is only found in rodents. However, infected rodents can pass larvae of the worm in their feces. Snails, slugs, and certain other animals (including freshwater shrimp, land crabs, and frogs) can become infected by ingesting this larvae; these are considered intermediate hosts,” the department stated.

“Humans can become infected with A. cantonensis if they eat (intentionally or otherwise) a raw or undercooked infected intermediate host, thereby ingesting the parasite.”

Ballard lapsed into a coma for 420 days and became a quadriplegic.

Before the disease, Ballard was known as an athletic teen who excelled at rugby. “It’s devastated, changed his life forever, changed my life forever,” mother Katie Ballard told news.com.au. “It’s huge. The impact is huge.”

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