An Australian man who passed away years after becoming paralyzed from consuming a slug had deeply moving final words.
In 2010, at 19 years old, Sam Ballard’s life took a tragic turn when his friends dared him to eat a slug.
Jimmy Galvin, a friend of Ballard, witnessed the incident.
Jimmy recounted to The Project: “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown ups and a slug came crawling across here.
“The conversation came up, ‘should I eat it?’ [and] off Sam went. Bang. That’s how it happened.”
After consuming the slug, Sam discovered the invertebrate was infected with a parasite called rat lungworm.
This led to severe weakness and pain in his legs.
Sam then developed a form of meningitis known as eosinophilic meningoencephalitis.
Although this type of meningitis is treatable, it caused significant damage to Sam’s health.
He fell into a 420-day coma and woke up severely disabled. The infection caused by the parasite had spread to his brain, leaving Sam paralyzed and only able to control his breathing and eyelids.
Katie Ballard became his full-time caregiver, attending to his needs around the clock.
Unfortunately, Sam, who was an avid rugby player before the incident, died after years of health complications.
The Project host Lisa Wilkinson mentioned that Sam was ‘surrounded by his family and loyal, loving mates’ before he passed away at the age of 29 in November 2018.
Wilkinson also noted that Sam’s final words to his mother were ‘I love you’.
Katie has never blamed Sam’s friends for the incident.
She shared with the NZ Herald: “[Online trolls would say] the boys should be the ones paying for Sam to be looked after.
“How stupid that a kid does something like that and expects everybody to pay for it.
“It’s tough to fathom that there are people that can’t understand there is a very sick kid who has lost everything health-wise. His family have lost him, you know. And all the great times they should have had with him.”
She emphasized that the boys were ‘just being mates’.
At Sam’s funeral in 2018, his brother Joshua addressed his friends: “We don’t want you to feel any guilt about what happened that night.
“Your friendship to Sam was extraordinary.”