Boy, 10, almost killed himself after drinking six bottles of WATER in an hour while playing with pals, leaving him unable to move as his brain swelled
- Ray Jordan, 10, was playing outside with friends on the Fourth of July when he ran inside for water
- The boy guzzled six bottles of water in an hour, causing his blood sodium levels to drop dangerously low
- His parents warned the experience left them fearing the worst after he completely lost his motor functions
A South Carolina boy was rushed to hospital suffering water intoxication after he downed six bottles of water in under an hour on a sweltering hot day.
Ray Jordan, 10, was playing with friends outside in Columbia for the Fourth of July holiday weekend when he almost lost his life.
Within an hour of guzzling the water, the boy was showing disturbing symptoms that left his parents fearing the worst.
‘(Ray) couldn’t control his head or arms or anything,’ his dad Jeff Jordan told WIS-TV. ‘His motor functions were gone.’
The 10-year-old has since thankfully made a full recovery, but his parents’ warnings serve as a reminder to others over the dangers presented by the hot summer months.
Ray Jordan, 10, was playing with friends outside in Columbia for the Fourth of July when he guzzled six bottles of water in an hour
The boy’s brush with death came while he, like millions of other Americans, was enjoying the hot weather for the Fourth of July festivities.
His parents said in the hours before he was hospitalized, an excited Ray was going ‘full throttle’ with his cousins, ‘running circles around the house, a bunch of boys together, jumping on the trampoline’.
However, his mom Stacy said after some time he became thirsty, and had ran inside to get himself some water.
‘What we didn’t realize how much he had got,’ she added, as it was later discovered that he had downed six bottles from 8:30 to 9:30pm.
Within an hour, his father Jeff says the boy ‘couldn’t control his head or arms or anything’, and his ‘motor functions were gone.’
As the reality of the situation set in, the parents added that Ray was seemingly deteriorating, and he ‘almost seemed like he was on drugs, drunk, or even mentally handicapped’.
Ray was rushed to hospital where it was found he was suffering from ‘water intoxication’, where his blood sodium levels fell dangerously low
The boy’s relieved parents Stacey (left) and Jeff (right) said they feared the worst when they saw their son deteriorated and completely lost his motor skills
How drinking too much water can put you in danger
Excessive fluid intake can cause hyponatremia.
Also known as water intoxication, hyponatremia develops as a result of there being too much water in the body.
This means the sodium level in the blood — which your body needs for fluid balance — is abnormally low.
The average adult requires between 3-4 liters of water a day, but kidneys can only process a liter of water an hour.
With nowhere else to go, the liquid is stored inside the body’s cells, causing them to swell.
An imbalance causes cells in the body to swell, including ones in the brain.
The swelling in the body can be managed if the excess is stored in the layers of muscle or fat, but if stored in the brain, it can cause serious health issues because of its inflexible structure.
Symptoms of water intoxication include headaches, confusion, or drowsiness, but if the pressure increases, patients may suffer brain damage, fall into a coma, and in extreme cases, even die.
As panic set in, the 10-year-old was rushed to Prisma Health Children’s Hospital.
There, emergency tests were run on Ray. and it was found he was suffering from ‘water intoxication’.
The medical crisis occurs when the kidney’s can’t handle a large amount of water flooding in at once, resulting in critically low sodium levels in the blood.
‘They were giving him something to help him urinate as much as possible to get those fluids out because it was swelling around his brain — that was why his head was hurting so much,’ Stacey added.
After some further procedures including regulating his blood with renewed sodium and potassium levels, his mother recalled that he miraculously ‘just woke up’.
Without knowing how close he had come to perilously endangering his own health, the mother added that Ray woke up by saying: ‘Where am I? What happened?’
His relieved parents added that Ray has since made a full recovery and has no ongoing side effects.
However, they said it should serve as a cautionary tale to other parents who wouldn’t know the dangers to look out for.
‘It never would have even occurred to us that it was dangerous,’ the parents said.
The couple also insisted that the crisis could have been avoided by switching water with sports drinks.
Health authorities recommend alternating between water and drinks such as Gatorade on hot days to battle dehydration, because the electrolytes in sports drinks don’t dilute blood sodium levels.
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