Death of Australian Man After Eating Gecko Likely Due to Parasite

An Australian man died a horrific death after eating a gecko on a dare.  Initially thought it was a massive Salmonella infection, it is now believed that it was a parasite that led to such dramatic symptoms as "vomiting green bile, his testicles each swelled to the size of a grapefruit with a strange fluid leaking from them — and his stomach was so badly bloated".  All of this within days after eating gecko.  From the article, a taxonomist and ecologist who is an expert in Asian house gecko parasites says a Spirometra tapeworm — which can group to about 4ft — could be what ravaged and ultimately killed the young dad."

Key - Ignore the dares and double dares when it comes to eating raw snails, reptiles, etc


The Sun
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9429635/dared-eat-gecko-australia-dead-tapeworm/
GRIM TWIST Man who died in agony after ‘gecko eating dare’ may have been killed by a parasitic Spirometra tapeworm, doctors say
Patrick Knox
3 Jul 2019, 16:19A DAD who died in "absolute agony" after he ate a gecko for a dare may have been killed by a tapeworm which lurked within the lizard.

David Dowell was rushed to hospital suffering from a shocking salmonella infection after apparently eating the reptile.

It had been thought that Mr Dowell had died from a severe case of salmonella after the 34-year-old dared to eat the Geko at a Christmas bash in December.

With days of swallowing the creature he began vomiting green bile, his testicles each swelled to the size of a grapefruit with a strange fluid leaking from them — and his stomach was so badly bloated he looked pregnant.

He died last September in "absolute agony".

'THEY WANDER THROUGH THEIR HOST'

Doctors have told news.com.au Mr Dowell’s symptoms were more extreme than salmonella and evidence of an abdominal obstruction and liver failure.

And a taxonomist and ecologist who is an expert in Asian house gecko parasites says a Spirometra tapeworm — which can group to about 4ft — could be what ravaged and ultimately killed the young dad.

Dr Diane Barton said: “Spirometra is in snakes, frogs and geckos and go into mammals like cats and quolls and attack and grow.

“These particular parasites are a problem.

“In their life cycle, they wander through the host, go through the tissues and get lost as they try to find their way to the lungs and end up in the meninges (the protective layers of the brain and spinal cord).”

Friends and family are now searching for answers six months on from the 34-year-old's horrific death after a Christmas bash in December.

Mr Dowell’s partner of 15 years Allira begged the paramedics to take him to taken to Brisbane’s Mater Hospital after they believed he just had a stomach bug or hangover.

“It was coming out both ends and he was really sick, and the moment he started throwing up and it was green, that’s when they rang the ambulance,” Mr Dowell’s sister Hannah told The Brisbane Times.

“When they got there, they (paramedics) didn’t even want to take him (to hospital). They said he just had gastro and his partner said, ‘No, you’ve got to take him; it’s not just gastro’.”

Within a day in hospital he was diagnosed with salmonella.

The illness, a food-borne bacteria, typically causes patients to suffer through days of diarrhoea, stomach cramps and fever.

But for Mr Dowell things were clearly much worse,  reports news.com.

He soon began vomiting green bile, his urine was black and his stomach was so badly bloated he looked six months pregnant.

His lungs also started to fill with fluid and fluid leaked from his stomach.

A day after he was admitted to hospital, Allira was told by a friend they were “pretty sure” they had seen him eat a gecko at the party.

“(Allira) told the doctor and the doctor said, ‘That could have been it’,” Hannah said.

“But there has been no evidence that he actually ate it because there was, ‘Oh yeah I saw him eat it’, and then, ‘No, I didn’t see him eat it’.

“It was a dare, so he might have intended to eat it and then thrown it away. At the end of the day, we don’t know whether he actually ate the gecko. David never mentioned it.”

On December 11, less than two weeks after the party, Mr Dowell died in surgery.

His family said he “basically rotted from the inside out”.

Hannah and her family are now calling for answers, especially relating to the decisions made at Mater Hospital.

"His testicles were swollen up to grapefruits and there was fluid leaking from them and they (doctors) said that was normal," she said.

“I want justice for David … or just answers. You don’t ever think anything like this could ever happen to you and then it does.”

In a statement, Mater Hospital said it was unable to comment on Mr Dowell’s death.

Similarities are now being drawn between Dowell’s shocking death and Sam Ballard.

He died in November, eight years after he was dared by his teenage mates to eat a slug crawling across the pavement of his Sydney home.

Mr Ballard, who was 19 at the time of the dare, started to develop severe pain in his legs. Doctors later determined the slug had infected him with rat lungworm.a