British Hiker Dies Of Water Intoxication.

A British woman died from drinking too much water while hiking, doctors have reported. 

The 47-year-old, from London, died after consuming so much water, the levels of salt in her blood plummeted, causing her brain to swell and die.

It is the first documented case of a hiker dying of 'water intoxication', doctors said.

Describing her case in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, the unidentified woman was hiking 6.2 miles across the Grand Canyon National Park with her husband in September 2008.

After their hike, the couple caught the bus to Grand Canyon Village, where she fainted and fell face-forward onto the pavement.

She regained consciousness and had no bumps to the head, the report said. 

When the emergency services arrived, the woman was sitting upright but was slow to respond to questions and complained of a headache.

She was given an IV drip line and put in a hard collar, head blocks, and spinal board in case there was damage to her spine.

But as she was transported to the nearest hospital, the woman suddenly sat upright, pulling out her IV line in the process.

‘She then vomited a large amount of clear fluid and immediately became unresponsive,’ doctors reported in the journal.

Doctors managed to stabilise her condition, giving her a saline (salt and water) solution and oxygen.

However, she never woke up and she was declared brain dead, 19 hours after she had collapsed.

moving, and ultimately ‘brain death’.  

According to the woman’s husband, she ‘drank a large amount of water and ate very little’ on the hike.

The large amount of water she consumed, along with the strenuous hiking, meant vital salt and mineral levels in the body were diluted.

Doctors concluded she had suffered from ‘exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH)’, which means low levels of sodium in the blood. 

Long or intense bouts of exercise causes the body to lose sodium, a mineral which is essential for keeping the correct balance of water levels the body's cells.

Low sodium levels causes water to rush into cells.

This causes the brain to swell, and the increased pressure can result in the body shutting down.

Because the brain is constricted by the skull, it has little room for expansion. Once it has enlarged by 6 per cent, it hits bone and starts to compress against the skull, leading to convulsions, coma, brain damage - and even death.

‘Early symptoms of EAH include nausea, vomiting and headache, which can rapidly progress to confusion, altered mental status, seizure, and death if untreated,’ the doctors wrote in the case report.

They warned that there is often a delay in symptoms occurring after the person has stopped exercising.

Though rare, marathon runners have died of EAH, leading US doctors to warn athletes who were drinking an average of three litres of water during a race, that they risked death.

This is the 'first documented fatal case of EAH in a hiker,' doctors said. 

Writing about the case of the British hiker, experts added her death might have been preventable.

They said if she had been given an IV solution that diverted water away from her cells, instead of the saline treatment for dehydration which would have made her condition worse, she may have lived.

‘Appropriate management of EAH relies on early recognition,’ the doctors concluded.

‘Although signs and symptoms of EAH are nonspecific and overlap with other conditions such as heat illness, acute mountain sickness, and hypoglycaemia [a lack of sugar in the blood], a history of high-volume fluid intake and seizure, or rapid mental status deterioration after exercise, should raise suspicion for EAH.’

Since the woman’s death, the Grand Canyon National Park has changed its emergency care and now stock hypertonic IVF fluids. It also has tests to check sodium levels in the blood.

The authors advised any sporting event dealing with endurance athletes should also take these precautions. 

culled from dailymail.

wow,i thought when one had no food,water was okay?Like when on a strict diet?

wow this is really informative!