Soy Sauce Overdose Puts 19-Year-Old In A Coma, First Person To Survive With No Lasting Neurological Problems

A 19-year-old man who drank a quart of soy sauce went into a coma and nearly died from the excess of salt in his body. He is the first known person to have intentionally overdosed on such a high amount of salt and survived with no last neurological problems, LiveScience.com reports.

According to the doctors in Virginia who reported his case, the man drank the soy sauce after being dared to do so by his friends.

The information was published in an online case report on June 4 in the Journal of Emergency Medicine. The boy was not named.

After the man drank the soy sauce, he began twitching and having seizures. His friends took him to the emergency room. He was already in a coma when he arrived at the University of Virginia Medical Center.

"He didn't respond to any of the stimuli that we gave him," Dr. David J. Carlberg said. "He had some clonus, which is just elevated reflexes. It's a sign that basically the nervous system wasn't working very well."

Within a half hour, they pumped 1.5 gallons (6 liters) of sugar water into the man's body to flush the salt out of his system, LiveScience.com reports.

The man's sodium levels returned to normal after about five hours. He remained in a coma for three days, but woke up on his own. A month after the event, the man was back at college and functioning normally.

Though the report does not identify the man, The Epoch Times refers to the case of 19-year-old John Paul Boldrick Virginia, who drank a quart of soy sauce in March 2011 and began foaming at the mouth.

He was pledging to Zeta Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia when he drank the soy sauce.