A mother of two, Ashley Summers has died after drinking too much water too quickly also known as water toxicity.
35-year-old Summers was out at Lake Freeman with her husband and two young daughters over the Fourth of July weekend when she began feeling severely dehydrated.
“Someone said she drank four bottles of water in 20 minutes,” her brother Devon Miller told WRTV. “I mean, an average water bottle is like 16 ounces, so that was 64 ounces that she drank in a span of 20 minutes. That’s half a gallon. That’s what you’re supposed to drink in a whole day.”
On the last day of the family’s trip, the mom began feeling like she couldn’t drink enough water.
Summers complained about feeling lightheaded and having a stubborn headache, her family said
“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,’” said Miller.
After returning from the trip, Summers passed out in her garage before being taken to IU Health Arnett Hospital.
She never regained consciousness, and doctors told her family she had died from water toxicity.
Water toxicity — also known as water poisoning or water intoxication — occurs when too much water is consumed in a short period of time, or if the kidneys retain too much water due to underlying health conditions.
Symptoms of water toxicity include feeling generally unwell as well as having muscle cramps, soreness, nausea, and headaches.
Sources: New York Post
