A heartbroken Indiana family once issued a stark warning after a mom died simply because she drank four bottles of water in 20 minutes.
Believe it or not, drinking too much water too quickly can be really dangerous.
Indiana mom Ashley Summers died suddenly after drinking the water
35-year-old Ashley Summers died in 2023 after consuming the equivalent of four 16-oz bottles of water in just 20 minutes on a Fourth of July outing to a lake.
She drank the 64 ounces of water in total after feeling severely dehydrated, according to her brother Devon Miller.
Speaking to Good Morning America at the time, Miller said: "At one point during the day, she started getting a bad headache,
"So, she was drinking a lot of water."
She downed the water in just 20 minutes, then later collapsed in the garage of her home.
Her brother continued: "She felt dizzy and had this headache,
"They got home. She walked across the garage to go into the house and she passed out in the garage."
Doctors later told the family that she died from water intoxication, which is a rare condition brought on by drinking way too much water in a short space of time, causing an imbalance in the body’s electrolytes.
According to the National Institutes of Health, symptoms of the rare but dangerous condition include ‘altered mental status, disorientation, confusion, nausea, and vomiting’.
If not caught at an early stage, water intoxication can lead to seizures, coma, and in some cases such as this, death.
Doctors warned against drinking too much water in short periods
Speaking to ABC News, Dr Stephanie Widmer said that the way to stave off water intoxication is to space out the water throughout a longer period rather than drinking loads in a short space of time.
She said: "The general recommendation is two liters of water per day, on average, per person, and that's throughout the day,
"But you also don't want to consume more than one liter [of water] per hour."
Echoing that warning, Miller said that his sister, who left behind a husband and two children as well as other members of the family, would still be alive if she’d simply have spaced the water out.
"If she would have spaced out her water consumption, she probably would be alive today," he said.
In the end, there was a crumb of comfort for the family, as Summers was an organ donor and managed to help others in death.
Miller concluded: "They were able to get her heart, her lungs, her liver, her kidneys and her long bone tissue,
"Five individuals are getting a second lease on life because of her generous donation."