Man Dies After Eating 28 Raw Eggs for a Bet
Let this tale be a lesson to avoid eating raw eggs, particularly if it is for a contest. Identified by a local media report as Dhaou Fatnassi, the 20-year-old man lived in the settlement of El Baten in Tunisia, near the northeastern city of Kairouan, according to IBNLive. The young man bet with his friends that he could eat 30 raw eggs for an undisclosed sum of money. Unfortunately, he paid the real cost for the bet: his life.
Fatnassi was able to progress far into the contest, shoving 28 uncooked eggs into his mouth. His friends eventually realized that there was something wrong with the young man, who was reportedly suffering from stomach pains, so they called an ambulance to the scene. Sadly, the man was pronounced dead by the time the ambulance arrived to the area hospital.
Though it is expected that a coroner will rule that eating so many raw eggs was the cause of Fatnassi's death, an official investigation is still underway. As of yet, the cause of death has yet to be established.
While eating raw eggs is unlikely to hurt you, it is still best to err on the side of caution. Eggs can be contaminated with the salmonella bacteria, which generally dies and becomes harmless when cooked. However, if the egg is ingested uncooked, the bacteria can remain alive and cause food poisoning. Though salmonella only appears in about every 1 in 30,000 eggs, it is impossible to know by the look or smell of it whether you have gotten a bad egg.
Strangely, this is not the first time this year that someone has tragically died after ingesting unusual foods. As we previously reported, a 32-year-old man named Edward Archbold died after consuming an untold number of cockroaches and worms. He died before he was able to collect his prize - an $850 python.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that eggs can be cotaminated with the salmonella virus. Salmonella is, of course, bacteria, not virus.