Credit: Kennedy News and Media
Heartbroken Mom Issues Urgent Energy Drink Warning After Daughter Dies Aged 28
A heartbroken mom has issued an urgent energy drink warning after her daughter tragically died at age 28.
Lori Barranon, from Orlando, Florida, U.S., is calling for a ban on ‘deadly’ energy drinks after the passing of her daughter, Katie Donnell, on August 9, 2021.
She says: “If you don’t keep your kids away from this stuff, you may be in my situation where your life is ruined. It’s so harmful and deadly, my whole family is affected by this.
“I beg people to counsel your kids and watch what they’re doing, I thought I was.
“I tell everybody I see with energy drinks that this is what it can do in the blink of an eye.
“I think energy drinks should be banned.”
Barranon claims her fitness-mad daughter drank up to three energy drinks daily, took energy-enhancing supplements pre-workout, and regularly drank ‘a lot of’ coffee.
The mom-of-one explains that Donnell consumed so much caffeine daily to fuel her workouts.
“She would start with a pre-workout before she went to work to supposedly wake up, or she went to the gym and did cardio at five in the morning,” Barranon recalls.
“I didn’t realize how much she was drinking until after she passed. Her boyfriend said she would buy a four-pack every two to three days.
“Not to mention, she was drinking a lot of coffee and doing the pre-workout.
“One of her friends said she’d hardly see Katie without an energy drink in her hands. When I cleaned out her car after she passed, it was full of cans, at least three or four in there.
“She thought it’d help her work out and give her more energy. She was working out, working full time, and going to school – burning it at both ends.”
Donnell had also visited her GP for ‘horrible anxiety,’ something her mom believes was actually the result of the amount of caffeine she was consuming.
“She had horrible anxiety and went to several doctors. I don’t think it was real anxiety, I think it was her abuse of caffeine and energy drinks,” the mom says.
“Doctors never asked her about her diet. When she would stay away from them and change her diet, the anxiety went away. What does that tell you?
“I think she got so used to that buzz from caffeine and pre-workout.”
Donnell, who didn’t have any known underlying heart conditions, unexpectedly suffered a heart attack while out with friends before spending 10 days on life support.
Barranon had to make the ‘horrible’ decision to switch off the machine following an anxious bedside vigil.
The mom believes her daughter’s ‘abuse’ of highly caffeinated products, to help fuel her twice-a-day workouts, triggered her heart attack.
“I was shocked. I knew I hated [energy drinks] but I didn’t know they could be deadly,” Barranon recounts.
“She was out with friends, and her eyes rolled back, and she was staring. They thought she had a stroke, but they realized she was having a heart attack.
“The ambulance got there and couldn’t intubate her. She was without oxygen for too long, and it caused brain damage.
“They worked on her for three hours, and she never woke up. The neurosurgeon came in and thought she was on drugs or was ‘roofied’ [spiked] or something.
“She was left for 10 days in a medically induced coma, but she never woke up.
“Whenever she tried to wake up, she was having seizures. Then her body started to fail, we had to do that horrible thing that nobody wants to do.”
The mom continues: “At 28, you just don’t see people dropping dead of a heart attack.
“She was a workout queen, she ate real clean, she ate organic food, she was the epitome of health, other than [having energy drinks].
“Doctors said they see this happen a lot with people that do a lot of pre-workout or energy drinks, but they wouldn’t give the cause of death to that.
“I know for a fact that was what was wrong with her.”
Now Barranon is urging people to see the potential dangers of energy drinks to prevent the same thing from happening to anyone else.
According to Healthline, energy drink consumption can cause cardiovascular issues, including high blood pressure, heart arrhythmias, and even heart attacks if consumed excessively.
Although the recommended daily dose of caffeine is 100 milligrams for adolescents and 400mg for adults, some energy drinks contain more than 500mg, which can cause caffeine toxicity.
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