Claire Reid
The husband of a woman who died after drinking too much water in a short period of time desperately battled to save her life with CPR.
Ashley Summers had been out enjoying Fourth of July at Lake Freeman, Indiana, with her two daughters, Brooklyn and Brynlee.
According to her uncle Deon Miller, Ashley began to feel very thirsty and started to experience headaches, which she put down to being dehydrated.
The 35-year-old began to drink water, but struggled to satiate her thirst meaning she downed four bottles of water in a short space of time.
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Speaking to The Messenger, Miller said: “It was really hot, and they were out on the water.
“She had a headache and felt really thirsty. She thought she must have been dehydrated, so she drank like four bottled waters in half an hour.”
Her brother Devon Miller said his sister had drunk 64 ounces of water during a '20 minute boat ride'.
He told WLFITV: “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.”
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Upon returning home, Ashley collapsed in her garage due to severe swelling on her brain.
Her panicked husband Cody Summers attempted CPR, before Ashley was rushed to Indiana University Health Arnett Hospital.
At the hospital, medics said she had water toxicity, also called hyponatremia, which develops when there is too much water and not enough sodium in the body.
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“Cody gave her CPR and got her going a little bit, but by the time they got to the hospital and ran tests and everything, they had to put her on the ventilator,” her uncle said.
“By that time, her brain had swelled enough that it shut all circulation off to her brain, and she was brain dead.
“Then, that night, she was gone. It’s been a real shock for the kids and everyone.”
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Her devastated brother added: “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’.”
Hyponatremia is caused when too much water floods the body in a short period of time, which overwhelms the organs - particularly the kidneys - and prevents them from regulating the balance of fluids.