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Topics: Food and Drink, Health, Europe, Ireland
Gerrard Kaonga
Topics: Food and Drink, Health, Europe, Ireland
Drinking lots of water is normally associated with being a great health choice, but it ended up costing one man his life.
A court has heard how Sean O’Donnell lost his life after suffering from fatal ‘water intoxication’ not long after leaving hospital.
The 59 year-old from Dublin, Ireland was booked in for a routine procedure at St. Vincent’s University Hospital back in January, 2020.
The unspecified operation went as planned and healthcare staff encouraged O’Donnell to drink plenty of water after - something that would later prove to be fatal.
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What the man suffered is medically known as hyponatremia, and it can be triggered relatively easily.
Experts have warned that as little as 1.4 litres of water, around six cups or just shy of four pints, in an hour can trigger the condition.
Water is pretty essential and vital to living and a healthy wellbeing, however, consuming too much over too short period of time can prove deadly.
Too much can lead to an imbalance of sodium inside the body; sodium is an electrolyte that helps regulate the amount of water in tissue.
Without enough in the body, water can build up in and around the cells in the body and causes them to swell.
If there is too much water in the system, the blood becomes waterlogged. It then gets drawn to regions where the concentration of salt and other dissolved substances is higher, at which point it enters the cells which swell to try and make room for it.
This can be particularly dangerous when it comes to the brain as it can’t properly expand due to being tightly confined by the skull.
In O’Donnell’s case, his brain swelled from too much water and this ultimately led to seizures, cardiac arrest and his eventual death the same day that he left the hospital.
Hyponatremia can also be triggered by consuming normal amounts of water in some, vulnerable patients and the amount needed to trigger it among healthy individuals can vary between individuals.
University Hospitals has stated there is 'no set amount of water that causes water intoxication', but it notes that kidneys can process approximately one liter of fluid per hour, so it can be risky to consume any amount above that over a continuous number of hours.
St Vincent’s hospital admitted a breach of duty of care and his family have been paid €35,000 ($38,144) for mental distress, the Irish Independent reports.
UNILAD has contacted St Vincen's University Hospital for further comment.