There are many mistakes the vast majority of us make while cloaked in the bravado of youth. Part of growing up is learning lessons through trial and error, and for the most part, when we put a foot wrong we have the opportunity to correct our course without serious consequence.
That’s not a hard and fast rule, however, and another inevitable truth is that some ill-conceived actions have dire ramifications. Sometimes all it takes is one poor choice to change a life, or lives, as the case may be, forever.
The friends and family of Sam Ballard know this better than most. In 2010, Sam was a teenager much like any other, a keen sportsman with a thriving social life and the promise of untold possibilities in the future.
That all changed one fateful day when Sam, while drinking at a party with a number of friends, was dared to eat a live slug.
A nauseating prospect to put it mildly, but Sam, fueled by alcohol and the ever present air of invincibility associated with teenage males, rose to the challenge, consuming the slug without a second thought as to the potential danger.
Tragically, the budding rugby player’s central nervous system began to shut down soon after.
The slug was infected with a parasite known as rat lungworm. As a result, Sam contracted a strand of meningitis, eosinophilic meningoencephalitis, described as severe but treatable.
Sam, who at that point had his whole life ahead of him, suffered an infection in his brain and fell into a coma in hospital that lasted 420 days.
When at last he finally woke up, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He could control his breathing and move his eyelids but required full-time, around-the-clock care from his mother, Katie Ballard.
Eight years later, in 2018, Sam passed away at the age of 28 due to medical complications resulting from the incident.
Jimmy Galvin, a friend of Sam’s, was present at the party where the aforementioned ill-advised dare chartered the course for the nightmarish set of events that would follow.
Recalling that fatal moment in an interview with The Project TV, Sam said: “We were sitting over here having a bit of a red wine appreciation night, trying to act as grown ups and a slug came crawling across here.
“The conversation came up, ‘should I eat it?’ [and] off Sam went. Bang. That’s how it happened.”
Jimmy revealed that, wracked with guilt, he had later apologized to Sam for not stopping him from eating the slug. Sam reportedly “started bawling his eyes out”.
Issuing a warning to other groups of friends who might be tempted to push the boundaries of sensibility in exchange for a quick laugh, Jimmy expressed a wish that other teens take a moment to consider the potential implications.
“Just take care of your mates,” he urged. “Before you jump off a roof into pool or dare your mate to eat something stupid.
“It can have the worst consequences – not only on your mate and the rest of your friends, the rest of your life, just take care of each other.”
Sam’s family have previously gone on record to state that they don’t blame his friends for what happened.
In 2018, they told the NZ Herald: “[Online trolls would say] the boys should be the ones paying for Sam to be looked after.
“How stupid that a kid does something like that and expects everybody to pay for it.
“It’s tough to fathom that there are people that can’t understand there is a very sick kid who has lost everything health-wise. His family have lost him, you know. And all the great times they should have had with him.”
Rest in peace, Sam Ballard.
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