Man ‘Rotted From the Inside Out’ After Eating Gecko
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The family of an Australian father of three who died in December says he “basically rotted from the inside out” after reportedly eating a gecko on a dare.
David Dowell of Brisbane at first thought he was hungover when he didn’t feel well a day after a Dec. 1 Christmas party. But the next day, “he started throwing up and it was green,” his sister, Hannah, tells the Sydney Morning Herald. “That’s when they rang the ambulance.”
The 34-year-old Dowell—with a swollen body, black urine, and fluid in his lungs—was found to have salmonella, with a doctor confirming to the family that a swallowed gecko “could have been” the cause.
A friend claimed Dowell had eaten a gecko at the party on a dare, but his family members can’t be sure. “David never mentioned it” and “there has been no evidence that he actually ate it … so he might have intended to eat it and then thrown it away,” says Hannah. Either way, “he was just in absolute agony.”
Dowell eventually suffered mass organ failure before dying during surgery just a week after his diagnosis, on Dec. 11. His partner of 15 years, Allira Bricknell, tells 7News.com.au that the death certificate mentions “ingestion of a gecko”—one of several animals that have salmonella bacteria in their gut. She remembers Dowell as “the best person I have ever met” as well as “the life of the party.”
Via Newser…
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Neither the flora nor fauna resemble what was here a hundred years ago. I’ve seen pictures of sand dunes where there’s jungle now and most of the trees are invasive and some have driven out deer and bear and even the cougar. Melaleuca and Brazilian pepper and Casuarina have driven out the native pines and oaks and people cut down everything to plant palms.
Yes, Several types of python are now here – they grow up to 18 feet or more and can swallow a deer whole. Several types have interbred and are bigger and deadlier. Nile monitor lizards, Taegu and many many other types of lizards including Iguanas have displaced the native reptiles.
Where there were clouds of birds there are none. Where all the ponds and roadside ditches were full of spoonbills there are none. and instead of seeing flocks of Ibis and egret in my neighborhood, I might see two or three now.
95% of mammals and some large percentage of birds are gone because of invasive species and the fish and marine mammals are disappearing. Local waters are literally too poisonous to touch, full of toxic algae and flesh eating bacteria.
They’re talking about fracking in the everglades. Within a year all those charming seaside towns on the atlantic coast will be in a state of collapse when they extend the most dangerous railroad up the coast and they want to allow them to transport huge quantities of LNG as well.
Florida is owned by out of state criminals and there seems to be nothing we can do.
And they are still trying out what causes sinkholes. Duh! When we pump more and more of the stuff from from down below to above the outer crust of the earth, there dirt falls to fill those holes. In another hundred years only muck and mud will be left.
Firstly. Good. He deserved it.
Secondly. I thought I’d eat anything!!!
Yep, you just don’t mess around with Geigo Insurance main Mascot. This begs the question, did the idiot not understand that one must first clean the animal one intends to eat. Just another way of culling the herd of idiots.
On rare occasions one of my dogs manages to catch an anole but there have been no problems. Now with new and ever more exotic lizards showing up I do worry about bacteria and parasites. Some of these lizards are big!
Glenn, based on things I have saw about South Florida you may as well be living in a jungle. The normal species of Florida was bad enough, with gators, all 4 types of of North American venomous snakes. Now you folks have to contend with several different types of constrictors and lizards and probably a few cobras now and then.