We may get advice from many people in life but when we get advice from our mothers, we realize it is coming from the best place. They have our best interest in mind and they want us to succeed in life but unfortunately, there are going to be times when we don’t pay attention to that advice. That is what happened with Michael Clarke, a 35-year-old man who was given some instruction by his mother, Shani Clarke. It happened when she saw a collection of energy drinks in his truck.
She told him that he should stop drinking them, afraid that he would become ill due to the high levels of caffeine and other chemicals inside of the energy drinks. He didn’t pay attention and within weeks, he was found slumped over inside of his truck. He had suffered from caffeine toxicity and suffered a massive heart attack. “I can’t tell you the pain I felt at that moment, my heart just hit the floor and I sobbed and sobbed,” Shani wrote on Facebook.
Shani, who is from Perth Australia had noticed that her son was dealing with a serious caffeine addiction prior to his death in January 2014.
“He was cleaning his truck out and I saw he had an armful of the big cans of Mother and I said ‘I hope you’re not drinking too many of them in one go’ which he just shrugged off as we mums know nothing, I didn’t think much more of it at the time,” she said.
Mother is a type of energy drink found in New Zealand and Australia.
She started to piece things together after he passed away. He had been complaining about indigestion prior to his death.
“The coroner said the indigestion could have been mistaken for a mild heart attack,” she said.
She also saw him picking up four packs of Mother energy drinks, which have a whopping 160 mg of caffeine in every can. The FDA says that you should have no more than 400 mg of caffeine daily. After drinking the energy drinks, he would have a few cups of coffee upon coming home.
Shani wanted to warn as many people as possible about the dangers of caffeine after her son died. She created the Caffeine Toxicity Death Awareness Facebook group.
Those inside of the group talk about their addiction and others are working on making others aware of the problem. Michael passed away in 2014 but his mother is still working hard to ensure that it doesn’t happen to others. She talked to somebody in 2018 who had a Red Bull addiction.
“Things ALWAYS happen for a reason, my back has been bad this week so got a dog wash lady to come round … and of course the caffeine subject came up and BAM she drinks Redbull every single day!” she posted in 2018.
“We had a BIG chat and gave her some cards to join the caffeine toxicity group to get help to come off, she has been thinking that she needs to stop but today I gave her the reason to stop…..another one to add to your list Michael Clarke of people you have helped.”
When energy drinks and other caffeinated products are not moderated they could cause problems. Always use caution when consuming any caffeinated product and stop if you begin to feel ill.
Source: Newsner