A Real Life Death By Caffeine
Fatalities from caffeine intake are extremely rare. Death by an energy drink is virtually impossible due to the sheer amount of liquid that would need to be ingested at one time. Caffeine pills, however, are a different story.
The death of a 19 year old Connecticut resident, James Stone, has been blamed on “caffeine toxicity”. The culprit was a dose of two dozen No-Doz tablets.
From the New Haven Register:
“I don’t want any other parent to go through what my wife and I have been through,” James Stone Sr. said. “It does not say on the bottle that it will kill you. It says right on the box that it’s like a cup of coffee.”
A quick tote up of the dose equates to about 4800 mg of caffeine (presumably these were the maximum strength No-Doz). As you can see on the box: “Safe as coffee”. That’s not really true. Caffeine in the form of this little pill hits you all at once. Drinking the equivalent in coffee takes considerably longer.
This is a tragic story – and serves as a warning. Don’t mess around with the pills – especially if you have high blood pressure issues or heart problems.
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But Roger, he was 19.
Some people are much more sensitive to caffeine then others and just a few pills can cause a near deadly heart murmur. I know a kid (well he was 20 at the time) who took a small amount of 3 caffeine pills and had a heart murmur. Heart problems were in the family and he was and still is a small person for his age.
I say this simply to illustrate the way this site’s death calculator works. It is saying that that would kill you no matter what. With out a doubt you are dead. Some bodies have no tolerance for the substance and when rushed with it they explode instantly and die. Well…not so literally.
I know my limit, anyone who does not know his/her limit should stay with the Dr. Pepper and Mt. Dew for energy boosts. Maybe when they are a big boy/girl they can drink some decaffeinated coffee, Yum…
It says he was 19 in the article; he was no child. Just a boy who was either bored, or stupid, or suicidal among many other possibilities. He was sensitive to caffeine and not to bright. He probably saw that it would take 40+ pills to kill him so took a smaller number to “get high” and “stay safe”. Caffeine is dangerous, and only those who are bright enough to know their limits should take it.
I can understand why he would try to down so many. Those damn things fail me so bad. Good thing a pack of 2 is only $99
He was not suicidal though. He just didnt understand how these pills could affect you. James was a loving person and would never have commited suicide. No-doz and other caffeine substitutes should have a chemical in them that would make you get sick if you took too much like lozenges have in them. It is a safety precaution. On top of that these bottles should also have a more definative warning on them than what is currently on the bottle!
I don’t mean to be rude or insensitive but there are lots of products on the market that can kill you if misused. At some point as a consumer you have to exercise common sense, no company can come up with all of the ways that someone can abuse their product and warn them against it. The box says No Doze is as safe as coffee, but isn’t it common knowledge that the caffeine in coffee can have nasty side effects for people? I mean, there isn’t decaf all over the place just because. I feel sorry for the parents but at 19 you should know better than to take an entire bottle of any thing. Why did James feel the need to take 24 pills? Would he have chugged 24 cups of coffee? At a certain point you have to stop expecting people and companies to look out for you and you have to look out for yourself.
Hey, 24 cups of coffee would be bad for you too. On top of the insane amount of caffeine, I don’t know if your bladder could hold that much at one time. It’d probably explode and soil your internal organs with pee, which would kill you pretty fast.
Having exchanged a few emails with Benjamin, I’m going to just out and out say it:
People make mistakes, James made one taking as many pills as he did.
I’m a lot more surprised, with how many people are here at the amount of people here that are still making mistakes.
For example..
{Snip}Maybe when they are a big boy/girl they can drink some decaffeinated coffee, Yum…
It says he was 19 in the article; he was no child. Just a boy who was either bored, or stupid, or suicidal among many other possibilities.{/Snip}
Nothing personal Matt, but I’ve talked with Benjamin, gotten the whole story, and frankly, your out of line, as I was.
Suffice to say, there’s more than the media is noting(an ever so common occurrence) that falls “among many other possibilities.” I’m sure if you had all the info, you’d be doing a quick reversal(as I have).
Hasn’t anyone bothered to view the pictures on the site? As someone with a bit of knowledge on the subject, I can safely say that he was mentally handicapped in some way.
The fact is, once you turn 18 you are legally an adult, developmentally delayed or not. Whether or not they “should” be, these people are living independently and part of our society, and we have an obligation to protect them. Even in our litigious society, the warnings on products are often not enough for these individuals, and I can see how he must have been deceived by the “safe as coffee” claim.
My condolences to Jimbo’s family and friends, this must be a terrible time for you.
this is even more insane than some of you think because the 200 mg. of caffeine in a no doz pill is equivalent to TWO cups of coffee so in reality he would have to drink 48 cups of coffee to get the same results. he had to know what he was doing when he took this many pills.
no sympathy for stupid people
Guys…enjoy energy drinks and caffeine pills while they last There will always be someone who abuses a product to a point that they either die, get sick, or seriously injured and of course instead of taking responsibility for their actions try to make a dollar off of their stupidity by issuing a lawsuit in the name of getting a unsafe product pulled off the shelves therefore ruining it for the people who use the products responsibly- true story this is america
Reading this thread, has really driven the message home just how ignorant people truly are. What a lot of people who have hurtful things to say to people who are suffering from this dreadful loss (I shall pray for them too) is really not a display of know how but ignorance. I am getting my masters in health sciences with a strong concentration on drug education. The No-doz pills are indeed a very dangerous thing to contend with. I mean come on folks lets get real; who would think that coffee, even 24 cups of it can kill you? I used to hang out in coffee shops and people drank pretty close to that amount quite often. The thing that isn’t clear is that the coffee some of these hard-core coffee drinkers drank was drawn out over a long period of time. Coffee even in the 115mg dosage found in drip coffee can be hazardous to the health. These caffeine pills are indeed hazardous and it is for the very reason that this poor unfortunate gentleman had suffered for. They are too much too quick; and appear safer than they actually are. If he was to drink the same amount of coffee (oh yes it can be done) he would have been feeling the effects after just a few glasses. Most especially his system would have had time to adjust the concentration levels in the blood. The most likely scenario here sounds like his blood pressure and heart rate went up to high and he had an arrythmia which led to a heart attack or a siezure. All of those things can be caused by regular doses of coffee! I commend the parents who came out with this and will say that their courage will not be in vain: people need to be aware of this and this needs to be out in the open before more youth suffer.
This is such bullshit.. I can’t beleieve the sympathy you guys are giving this person.
The guy is obviously a little “challenged” from his pictures, but even more so by taking a whole bottle of caffeine pills!
I am not out of line at all, people die all the time from taking whole bottles of tylenol, don’t attack caffeine like it’s some toxic drug that killed him out of the blue! -How dare you!-
It must have sucked for the family, yes. The website says he was funny and he obviously liked caffeine (much like myself) but that’s where the similarity ends..
Take a whole bottle of lortab, valium, everclear or even tylenol and see what happens!
-If anything this gives me a reinforced feeling of safety, I wouldn’t think of taking an entire bottle of caffeine pills, and I obviously way much more than him, with a more strongly developed physiology.-
ok so maybe my last comment was a bit insensitive…
I must admit that I have some anxiety issues I developed somehow and that makes me weaker to caffeine nowdays..
when I was a bit younger I took two of these high caffeine capsules (tons of it if I remeber right…) and drank two HUGE sweet teas right after and I got Overdose syptoms… (I felt cold, irrational, my chest felt cold, cold sweat, nervousness, fear of impending doom…etc..)
Looking further at the guys pictures he doesn’t look ‘challenged’ at all.. he was just goofy sometimes, like I am.. he reminds me alot of me, and that makes me sad.. I could have had the same fate, and I’m sorry for the above comment..
(although I stand by my brash statement of the stupidity of taking the whole bottle in my above comment…)
Hart or Benjamin could one of you please tell me these facts about this particular case that aren’t revealed in the article. I seriously want to hear the “whole story”.
It will take a lot to convince me that I should feel bad for him because it was a drug, an OTC drug yes but I wouldn’t take 24 of any OTC drug be it ibuprofen or 24 shots of cough syrup. I would however eat 24 cough drops because the are in fact candy.
I took 23 at my prom and ended up throwing up all night, not being able to sleep and the worst stomach feeling ive ever had. Seriously stay away from these and dont be stupid like me
Nice…
I couldnt survive without No Doz…I take it all the time. However im smart enough to know that you can overdose on caffeine. DUH! Are they sure it wasnt a sucide? I only take about 1 pill at at time…wait for that to ware off then take another if needed.
Some people are really dumb.
Ill be short and simple.
If it has drug facts on it read them.
Anything that does.
I do feel sorry for him.
But I can’t say there is any legitimate reason to sue or raise too much alarm.