Last month, a 16-year-old collapsed in a classroom at his South Carolina high school. Now, USA Today reports, the Richland County coroner says that Davis Allen Cripe died from ingesting a large amount of caffeine.
Coroner Gary Watts called the cause of death a "caffeine-induced cardiac event causing a probable arrhythmia," which the American Heart Association defines as abnormal heart rhythms.
Cripe drank a large Diet Mountain Dew, a latte from McDonald's and an unnamed energy drink all over the course of two hours. While Cripe's family said he has no history of heart problems, he died just about an hour after passing out, according to The State.
Watts explained to The State how rare the incident is, saying, "You can have five people line up right here and all of them do the exact same thing that happened with him that day—drink more—and it may not have any kind of effect on them at all."
Cripe's father encouraged parents to talk to their children about consumption of energy drinks, which contain about 300 mg of caffeine, according to The Washington Post. A recent study found that 400 mg of caffeine is the most that healthy adults should be drinking per day to avoid adverse health effects, so even having another cup of coffee with an energy drink could put someone over the top.
In a related article, USA Today asked New York City medical officials about safely consuming caffeine. They said most people can drink about 4 cups of coffee safely, but it would take around 50-100 cups to kill someone. Those who drink a cup of coffee a day aren't in danger, but extremely incidences like Cripe's death could happen to anyone based on their consumption, body weight and the amount of time in which they consume caffeine.