16-year-old Julio Macias Gonzalez of Iztapalapa, Mexico returned home one night, sporting a hickey on his neck that his girlfriend had given him.
Not too long afterward, Gonzalez began to experience convulsions.
His family immediately called an ambulance to take him to the emergency room, but the paramedics were unable to stop his convulsions and save him.
They later determined that the convulsions had been caused by a blood clot, which had traveled to his brain and resulted in Gonzalez having a stroke.
The blood clot, paramedics discovered, had been caused by the hickey Gonzalez’s girlfriend had given him.
Gonzalez’s parents had never approved of their son’s relationship with the older woman, and currently, the 24-year-old woman is nowhere to be found.
This is the first time a hickey has led to death, but it isn’t the first time a hickey has resulted in serious medical complications.
One woman in New Zealand once lost the ability to move her left arm because of a blood clot caused by a hickey; her doctors had to prescribe her with an anti-coagulant for the clot to disappear.
Perhaps these cases are all warning signs that we should show our love in less violent ways.
