Doctor shares symptoms to look out for after mum dies from drinking too much water
Rhiannon Ingle
A doctor has shared the symptoms to look out for after one mum died from drinking too much water.
Ashley Summers, 35, tragically passed away from water intoxication during a holiday with her family at Lake Freeman in Indiana across the long Fourth of July weekend.
On the final day of the trip, the mum-of-two began to suffer an array of symptoms which one health professional has since pointed to as 'early signs of water intoxication'.
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Ashley drank too much water in too short a space of time after feeling like she just couldn’t quench her thirst.
She ended up drinking the equivalent of four 16oz (500ml) bottles in just 20 minutes leading her to later collapse in her garage due to severe swelling on her brain.
While she was rushed into hospital, where medics said she had water toxicity or hyponatremia - which develops when there is too much water and not enough sodium in the body - Ashley sadly never regained consciousness.
"She will forever be our superhero and my number one love," said her devastated husband Cody Summers.
Ashley's brother, Devon Miller, opened up on what it was like when he received the heartbreaking call that his sister had been taken to hospital.
"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'," he told WLFI.
Devon went on: "It was a big shock to us all. I was just like, this is a thing?'
"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."
Doctor Harwani, a physician at the hospital, has since explained a little more about the medical condition, noting that it is 'relatively rare'.
Speaking to WLFI, he informed that 'kidneys can really only clear about a litre of water per hour'.
Ashley had consumed double that amount of water in a third of that time.
The physician continued: "Things to look out for are if you just start feeling really out of it, very tired, very fatigued.
"Sometimes patients feel like they’re starting to have a mild headache, or are just feeling overall unwell. Those could be early signs of water intoxication."
Harwani warned: "If you’re really concerned that you or a family member is not acting right and you’re worried about water toxicity, don’t hesitate to call 911, don’t hesitate to go to the [emergency room]."