Recently, a 16-year-old high school student collapsed at school and was pronounced dead an hour later. His parents were devastated, and the time they should have spent together as a family was now being spent on making funeral arrangements, procuring a Batesville casket, and grieving for the loss of their son. How could this have happened? Spontaneous death is a rare occurrence that few parents will have to worry about. Though sudden death is often caused by the introduction of a food or chemical into the system. During the investigation into the student’s death, no drugs or alcohol were found in his system. However, he was known to have ingested a significant amount of caffeine in the two hours before his death, including soda, coffee and energy drinks. The cause of death was determined to be cardiac arrest due to arrhythmia, caused by excess caffeine ingestion. With arrhythmia, the heart […]
