Tragic story of dad who mistakenly drank a lava lamp at bed time
A 35-year-old man suffered horrifically after he ended up drinking the contents of a lava lamp and had to be rushed to hospital.
He'd been an alcoholic for several years until he decided to quit the bottle cold turkey, which caused severe withdrawal symptoms.
Ditching alcohol suddenly will have a profound effect on your body, and while immensely good for you in the long run, those early stages will be incredibly difficult.
Anxiety, hand tremors and shakes, sweating and headaches are to be expected for alcoholics quitting the bottle, and several days after his last drink the man was feeling the symptoms.
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Craving a drink and with no access to alcohol, the New Jersey man was delirious enough to look at his lava lamp and decide to drink the contents.
He was found the next morning having a seizure on his bathroom floor by his wife, who called for an ambulance and had the 35-year-old rushed to hospital.
He was eventually diagnosed as having prerenal azotemia, most common form of kidney failure in people who are hospitalised, and tests showed he had a low level of calcium in his blood.
Bacteria was also found in his urine, indicating that he had an infection in his urinary tract, and several hours after being admitted to the emergency room, he suffered multiple organ failure.
To explain what had happened to him and why the lava lamp contents were at fault, the insides of a lava lamp contains wax, kerosene and polyethylene glycol, the main ingredient in anti-freeze.
While taken individually, and in very small doses in the case of kerosene, it's not particularly harmful - though we wouldn't advise chugging lava lamps from now on.
However, for the man, this cocktail produced kidney stones thanks to his hypocalcaemia, blocking flow and causing parts of his organs to die.
Fortunately after a long hospital stay, AW was able to recover, and not everyone has been so lucky.
In 2007 a 50-year-old London man died after drinking toxic oil contained within a lava lamp, the Islington Tribune reported.
He'd been found by firefighters after accidentally starting a fire in his house and was taken to hospital where he died several days later.
The emergency services had not initially noticed the opened lava lamp near him, and oil from the lamp was found in his colon after his death, with his death ruled as a misadventure.
Joe Harker