Why you shouldn't eat strange bugs

[mr friendly guy]

Because they might carry diseases

Queensland dad David Dowell dared to eat gecko at a party dies 10 days later
Days after David Dowell was dared to eat a gecko at a party, the Queensland dad was in hospital vomiting up bile. He died “in absolute agony”.

Dad-of-three David Dowell was always known as a loveable larrikin and a man who would never back down from a dare, but one he took last year — when a friend dared him to eat a gecko at a Christmas party — could be the thing that claimed his life.

Friends and family are still searching for answers six months after Logan dad Mr Dowell was dared to eat the lizard.

Mr Dowell, who would’ve turned 35 last week, was rushed to Brisbane’s Mater Hospital in “absolute agony” on December 3, two days after friends reportedly saw him eat the gecko at the Saturday night party.

Mr Dowell’s partner of 15 years Allira begged the paramedics to take him to hospital after they believed he just had a bad bout of gastro or a severe hangover.

“On (December 3), it was coming out both ends and he was really sick, and the moment he started throwing up and it was green, that’s when they rang the ambulance,” Mr Dowell’s sister Hannah told The Brisbane Times .

“When they got there, they (paramedics) didn’t even want to take him (to hospital). They said he just had gastro and his partner said, ‘No, you’ve got to take him; it’s not just gastro’.”

David Dowell and his partner Allira. Picture: Facebook
David Dowell and his partner Allira. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

A day into his hospital stay, Mr Dowell was diagnosed with salmonella.

The illness, a foodborne bacteria, typically causes patients to suffer through days of diarrhoea, stomach cramps and fever.

But for Mr Dowell — things were much worse.


The dad-of-three began vomiting green bile, his urine was black and his stomach was so badly bloated he looked six months pregnant. His lungs also started to fill with fluid and fluid leaked from his stomach.

A day after Mr Dowell was admitted to hospital, Allira was told by a friend they were “pretty sure” they had seen him eat a gecko at the party.

“(Allira) told the doctor and the doctor said, ‘That could have been it’,” Hannah said.

“But there has been no evidence that he actually ate it because there was, ‘Oh yeah I saw him eat it’, and then, ‘No, I didn’t see him eat it’.

“It was a dare, so he might have intended to eat it and then thrown it away. At the end of the day, we don’t know whether he actually ate the gecko. David never mentioned it.”

Hannah told the news site her brother was in “absolute agony”.

Mr Dowell died in December. Picture: Facebook
Mr Dowell died in December. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

Michelle Dowell, Hannah and David’s mum, begged doctors to operate.

“His testicles were swollen up to grapefruits, and there was fluid leaking from them, and they (doctors) said that was normal, it was just all of the fluid in his stomach cavity,” Michelle told the paper.

On December 11, less than two weeks after he reportedly ate the gecko, Mr Dowell died in surgery.

His family said he “basically rotted from the inside out”.

Hannah and her family are now calling for answers, especially relating to the decisions made at Mater Hospital. They claim the doctors “didn’t really care”.

“The surgeon basically said that he needed that (surgery) straight away,” Hannah told The Brisbane Times .

“We also asked why they didn’t give him a catheter, and they said they didn’t think of that.

“We had to ask for pain relief for David … He was put into a coma because they couldn’t control his pain. We never really got to say goodbye to him.

“It was like they didn’t really care. The moment he got moved into the intensive care unit, that’s when they got serious.

“I want justice for David … or just answers. You don’t ever think anything like this could ever happen to you and then it does.”

David with Allira. Picture: Facebook
David with Allira. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook

In a statement, Mater Hospital said it was unable to comment on Mr Dowell’s death.

“Mater offers its deepest condolences to the family of Mr David Dowell. Mr Dowell’s case was referred to the coroner, who determined Mater had provided appropriate care and no further action was required. Mater is unable to comment further on the case due to patient confidentiality.”

Mr Dowell left behind three young girls. His funeral, held on December 21, was attended by hundreds of people.

A large number of animals carry salmonella in their gut — including snakes, frogs and geckos.

Similarities have been drawn between Mr Dowell’s death and Sam Ballard.

Mr Ballard died in November, eight years after he was dared by his teenage mates to eat a slug crawling across the pavement of his Sydney home.

RELATED: Sydney man who contracted rat lungworm after eating slug dies

Mr Ballard, who was 19 at the time of the dare, started to develop severe pain in his legs.

Doctors later determined the slug had infected him with rat lungworm.


The worm that infected him is usually found in rodents, but snails and slugs can also become infected when they eat rat faeces.

He contracted eosinophilic meningo-encephalitis, which many people recover from but the Sydney teen didn’t.

He fell into a coma for 420 days and when he woke had an acquired brain injury.

Mr Ballard died in early November. His last words to his mum, who cared for him for eight years, were “I love you”.

Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick. When I was younger I would have nominated them for Darwin awards. Now I just feel sad for their families.

[AniThyng]

So did he receive the optimal treatment? The article makes it sound like the hospital just left him to slowly die.

[mr friendly guy]

I am a bit suspicious myself of the article. To diagnose the exact bacteria in one day is pretty standard, yet the article makes it sound like the hospital didn't do much with the information.

Looks to me he developed multiorgan failure from salmonella sepsis.

[Broomstick]

We're hearing the family's side of it, not the doctors'. How laypeople perceive medical care is often vastly different than how the professionals do.

I fully believe that the initial reaction of "it's just gastro" was spot on because all too often people just don't take belly pain as seriously as they should. I had a bought of norovirus that put me in the hospital and while did receive good care from the people directly involved in my case, who took my symptoms and suffering seriously, an appalling number of other people had rude comments about my "over-reacting" to "just a stomach ache". So I could see the ambulance folks initially being skeptical and yet they did transport the patient so even if the care wasn't ideal from a bedside manner approach it was appropriate.

For the rest - when someone is seriously ill, displaying alarming symptoms, and the family is going nuts from the surging emotions they may or may not comprehend what medical people are telling them, there may be denial. There seems to be some contradiction in the account - the family claims inadequate pain management, yet also says he was put into a medical coma which is pretty powerful pain control right there. Did the hospital "leave him to die" or was it a situation where there wasn't much that could be done and palliative care the only option? Impossible to tell from the article.

[Jub]

Echoing what Broomstick said it's possible that by the time they knew exactly what was going on with the patient they didn't have any good options left. The salmonella had been in his system for two days before they got him into the hospital, then another day for testing and diagnosis. By that point, aggressive antibiotics may have already been off the table due to liver damage either from the bacteria or other causes.

He's also unlucky, in the US you have about a 3 in 8,000 chance of dying from salmonella and most people only require fluids and rest to get over the disease. So either DD had a weakened or otherwise atypical immune response, or there was something else seriously wrong with him to cause the reported symptoms. In these oddball cases where things progress very quickly, especially when the hospital staff is getting conflicting information about possible causes, it can be hard to narrow down on the correct treatment quickly enough. There's also a chance that if he had survived the surgery he would have made a recovery but without the medical report, that's impossible to say.

As for his care, it may not have been perfect but being placed into a medical coma and dying in surgery sounds like the hospital was taking some aggressive steps to save this man's life.

[mr friendly guy]

Well the coroner did find the hospital provided appropriate care given the circumstance.

Also, don't eat geckos. They are cute.

[Tribble]

Well the coroner did find the hospital provided appropriate care given the circumstance.

Also, don't eat geckos. They are cute.

One would think that not eating uncooked meat is a lesson everyone would pay attention to, let alone a random gecko that someone found. Plus was the thing alive? Freshly killed? Rotting in the street?

[Broomstick]

It's not unknown for someone to have an "atypical" reaction, or a more severe reaction than normal what is usually an innocuous infection, or even die from something usually minor and be revealed on autopsy to have one (or more!) other things going on that lead to an unusual vulnerability. Someone dies of food poisoning and is found on autopsy to have some sort of cancer going on, as an example.

Have no idea if this was one of those situations or not. We'll most likely never know.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Salmonella is a really nasty infection. Once it's in the gut it can easily be lethal no matter what the doctors do. By the time he was in hospital, he was probably already septic and at that point, even killing the bacteria might not save the patient due to damage to the organs and blood vessels.

[Rogue 9]

Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick. When I was younger I would have nominated them for Darwin awards. Now I just feel sad for their families.

He wouldn't have qualified anyway, having already reproduced. But yeah, that's awful for them.

[Zixinus]

Let me get this straight: he ate it raw?