A heartbroken mother opened up about losing her daughter 10 years ago, to a suspected overdose on chewing gum.
19-year-old Samantha Jenkins died 10 years ago after having a fit, being rushed to hospital and put into an induced coma – most likely due to her chewing gum habit.
Earlier, she’d complained of an upset stomach before collapsing.
Samantha thought it was a soft drink that was causing her to feel sick, but an autopsy in 2011 revealed “four or five bright green lumps” in her stomach which turned out to be chewing gum.
“I was making tea in the kitchen and there was just normal banter around the table. She continued to say she didn’t feel well,” Samantha’s mother, Maria Morgan, said.
“I said, ‘You have been out in the sun, come and drink some water, it’s been boiling today, you’re probably just a bit dehydrated.’
“I told her to go and have a lay on the bed and take a bottle of water with her as she probably had too much sun. Then I heard this thud.”
When Samantha presented at the local hospital in Felinfoel, south Wales, medical staff allegedly knew that Sam has poisoning of some kind.
Eventually, a coroner ruled that a chewing gum overdose could have played a part in Samantha’s death.
Aspartame and sorbitol, two ingredients commonly found in an array of chewing gum, can cause the body’s salt levels to drop drastically, resulting in severe electrolyte depletion.
Acting senior coroner for Swansea, Collin Phillips, said the cause of Samantha’s death was a shortage of oxygen to her brain, resulting from a convulsion caused by an imbalance of minerals in her body.
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“We were basically told as far as they could see that something had poisoned her. It was just about trying to fathom out what it was so they could possibly save her,” Morgan continued.
“One day, my other daughter mentioned that Samantha used to chew chewing gum, so I mentioned that to the coroner’s office because she did used to chew gum a lot.”
In small quantities, aspartame and sorbitol are harmless. When ingested in large quantities, the results can be fatal.
Pathologist Dr Paul Griffiths told an inquest in Swansea in 2015 that Samantha had low magnesium, calcium, potassium and sodium levels, which may have been caused by malabsorption due to the chewing gum in her stomach.
Samantha’s family searched her bedroom after her death, and discovered a massive amount of empty chewing gum boxes and wrappers.
“Every bag that she had and every drawer in her bedroom there were chewing gum wrappers, empty chewing gum boxes,” Morgan noted.
“I couldn’t have told you how much she chewed, but I could say what I found – evidence that she was chewing them every day and was buying at least a packet a day on the way to work, sometimes two packets.
“10 years on there are so many ‘whys’ for me, but the biggest why is why on earth have I lost my daughter to chewing gum? I mean chewing gum, come on, it’s ridiculous.”
Morgan said her recent decision to come forward over Samatha’s death was done in the hopes of honouring her daughter as “bubbly, vivacious and fun-loving”.
