Mom Blames Energy Drinks for Girl's Fatal Heart Attack

Arizona 16-year-old dies while on vacation in Mexico
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 18, 2014 12:07 PM CDT
Mom Blames Energy Drinks for Girl's Fatal Heart Attack
Lanna Hamann in a Facebook photo.   (Facebook)

A 16-year-old Arizona girl is dead after an apparent heart attack, and her mother thinks energy drinks are to blame, reports WFSB-TV. Lanna Hamann died over the weekend while vacationing in Rocky Point, Mexico, with friends and at least one set of parents. Her friends tell mom Kris Hamann that Lanna had been consuming energy drinks on the beach and complained to her friend's father that evening that she wasn't feeling well. Though she was taken to a clinic, she soon went into cardiac arrest, reports MyFox Phoenix.

"Obviously, this is something that could have happened anywhere, whether she was in Mexico or whether she was here in Arizona playing softball," says Kris Hamann. But parents should make sure their kids are "drinking water instead of an energy drink," she says. Supporters are raising money through this GoFundMe page to help defray the costs of bringing the teen's body back to the US, notes ABC News. High levels of caffeine and sugar in energy drinks have raised health concerns about them, though no official determination has been made in this case. (In October, another family filed a lawsuit against Red Bull claiming the drink killed a healthy 33-year-old man.)

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