16-Year-Old Dies Due To Consuming Lethal Amount Of Caffeine

When in dire need of staying awake, people will oftentimes consume copious amounts of caffeine in hopes of fending off sleep. Sadly, high schooler Davis Allen Cripe pushed his limits too far after drinking a large Mountain Dew, a McDonald’s cafe latte, and an energy drink within two hours, with his death being ruled a caffeine-induced cardiac event.

At a press conference, Richland County Coroner Gary Watts revealed, “We lost Davis from a totally legal substance.”He added, “It was so much caffeine at the time of his death, that it caused his arrhythmia.”

Watts used the opportunity to remind everyone in attendance about the dangers of caffeine.

“This is what’s dangerous about this,” Watts noted. “You can have five people line up and all of them do the exact same thing with him that day, drink more, and it may not have any type of effect on them at all.”

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Davis’ dad Sean echoed Watts’ sentiments, confessing, “I stand before you as a broken-hearted father and hope that something good can come from this.” he said. “Parents, please, talk to your kids about the dangers of these energy drinks. And teenagers and students, please stop buying them.”

Although the official amount of caffeine wasn’t released, the Journal of Caffeine Research says it would take roughly 10 grams of caffeine in an adult’s system to have fatal consequences. The average caffeinated beverage contains 1 to 2 mg/kg of caffeine. To achieve this concentration, one would have to drink nearly six gallons of coffee.

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Despite the exorbitant amounts of caffeine necessary to prove fatal, the combination of large amounts of caffeine and possible heart conditions typically result in caffeine-related deaths.

[H/T New York Post]