Current Events > teen resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest from drinking charged lemonade

(+) Yeah! (+)

...at Panera:

A Pennsylvania teenager had to be resuscitated in March when he went into cardiac arrest after he drank Panera Breads highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade, a lawsuit says.

The suit, obtained first by NBC News, was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania just under two weeks after Panera announced it was discontinuing the controversial beverage. It is at least the fourth lawsuit filed against the bakery-cafe chain over the drink, which previous suits have blamed for two deaths and a womans permanent health problems.

Panera has denied wrongdoing in legal documents. It did not immediately respond to questions about Mondays lawsuit.

The complaint alleges that Luke Adams, 18, had no known health issues when he bought a chicken sandwich and a large Charged Lemonade on March 9 in his hometown, Monroeville. That evening, Adams went to a movie theater with friends. While they were watching the film, a friend heard Adams making unusual sounds, the suit says. The friend then realized Adams had become unresponsive.

Two nurses and a cardiologist who happened to be in the theater performed CPR, the lawsuit said. They also used an automated external defibrillator to shock Adams heart which undoubtedly helped his chances of surviving, said Dr. Andrew Pogozelski, the cardiologist who has treated Adams since the incident.

He was about as close as you can come to being dead, said Pogozelski, chief of cardiology at Allegheny Health Networks Forbes Hospital in Monroeville. This was about as unlucky as you can get for this to happen to an 18-year-old, otherwise healthy person but about as lucky as you can get for people in the movie theater to know what they were doing.

more at link: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teen-resuscitated-cardiac-arrest-drinking-panera-charged-lemonade-laws-rcna151691

Havent read the article, but proving that the cardiac arrest was caused by the drink wont be easy.

The gen z four loko

So how many people need to die of The Panera Lemonade That Kills You before they change the mix or pull it from the menu

now we cant have nice things... no more charged lemonade.

should be signing a waiver just to drink it.

While we are at it, food companies also shouldnt be selling items with a gross amount of sugar, cause it will still you albeit a bit slower.

The problem is the large charged lemonade has the maximum amount of daily caffeine considered "safe". So if the teen also had a coffee earlier or a large soda at the movies they're entering dangerous levels of caffeine without even realizing it.

It likely wasn't just the lemonade but it's a problem that people aren't told the lemonade needs to be literally all the caffeine they ingest that day or they risk problems.

I asked a former colleague who went over to work at the local Panera since they were offering a decent hourly wage compared to the uncertainly of tips from waitressing, and she told me that she drunk one of those charged lemonades and felt her heart revving up quite fast for a while afterwards, though thankfully she didnt go into cardiac arrest or worse since that wouldve been absolutely awful.

She said that her fellow employees were letting customers know about the amount of caffeine and sugar in it before ringing up their orders since they didnt feel right letting their customers buy it without first being informed about how charged it actually was.

I remember reading about this months back. Their charged lemonade has like 5x the caffeine of a shot of espresso. Maybe it was the right call to discontinue it.

How much caffeine is the limit for a day?

Voidgolem posted...

So how many people need to die of The Panera Lemonade That Kills You before they change the mix or pull it from the menu

its being discontinued

I dont think drinks like this should be banned, but the signage needs to be incredibly clear

s0nicfan posted...

The problem is the large charged lemonade has the maximum amount of daily caffeine considered "safe". So if the teen also had a coffee earlier or a large soda at the movies they're entering dangerous levels of caffeine without even realizing it.

It likely wasn't just the lemonade but it's a problem that people aren't told the lemonade needs to be literally all the caffeine they ingest that day or they risk problems.

The other problem is since it tastes good, unlike a good majority of other larger caffeine sources, it's easier to drink quickly, unlike, say, coffee, where you're more likely to sip it over time.

EDIT: Similarly, with coffee or typical energy drinks, you need to have more than one to hit that much, whereas with the lemonade, it's easier to think "This is just one drink."

EDIT EDIT: That isn't to safe coffee CAN'T taste good, but you've gotta add sugar/creamer/whatever, yourself, whereas the lemonade is prepared that way for you, and cheaper than the better tasting coffee drinks you'd get at Starbucks or a cafe.

pedro45 posted...

How much caffeine is the limit for a day?

400mg.

A cup of coffee has around 50mg for context. IIRC a large charged lemonade is like 395mg
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-much

The fundamental problem is that self-serve energy drinks aren't really a thing and people can't figure out portions. With coffee, people know exactly how much they need.

HashtagSEP posted...

The other problem is since it tastes good, unlike a good majority of other larger caffeine sources, it's easier to drink quickly, unlike, say, coffee, where you're more likely to sip it over time.

EDIT: Similarly, with coffee or typical energy drinks, you need to have more than one to hit that much, whereas with the lemonade, it's easier to think "This is just one drink."

This too. That's the issue 4loko had: it had way more alcohol than the taste made obvious so people were pounding them down the way they wouldn't with hard liquor.

ngl, I used to order the drinks multiple times a week :/

I never even knew that they were potentially bad for my health, but I haven't had any for more than a year, I think.

s0nicfan posted...

400mg.

A cup of coffee has around 50mg for context. IIRC a large charged lemonade is like 395mg
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-much

it should also be noted that 400mg is just a general youll be fine but anymore than this will probably have uncomfortable effects

Some people can handle much less caffeine and some way more. Its actually very hard to die from a caffeine overdose itself unless youre very sensitive to caffeine

I've seen people use an entire Mio Energy at once. Serious heart palpitations.

Starks posted...

I've seen people use an entire Mio Energy at once. Serious heart palpitations.

Mio energy has 60mg of caffeine. A large charged lemonade is like drinking 6 mios back to back.

Edit: that was per serving, not per bottle. So yes, that's a crapton of caffeine

Some drinks should be illegal.

Voidgolem posted...

So how many people need to die of The Panera Lemonade That Kills You before they change the mix or pull it from the menu

It's already been pulled. This incident is from months ago

kingdrake2 posted...

now we cant have nice things... no more charged lemonade.

should be signing a waiver just to drink it.

Why would you want caffeinated lemonade?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a1b26752.jpg

I had the charged lemonade several times while also drinking other energy drinks that day. Can I somehow make money from this?

Starks posted...

I've seen people use an entire Mio Energy at once. Serious heart palpitations.

The fuck? Isn't that like 1,000+ mg of caffeine? Why would they do that to themselves?

fan357 posted...

I had the charged lemonade several times while also drinking other energy drinks that day. Can I somehow make money from this?

Make money from not having heart conditions? I guess you could become a professional athlete if you wanted to put in the effort.

s0nicfan posted...

This too. That's the issue 4loko had: it had way more alcohol than the taste made obvious so people were pounding them down the way they wouldn't with hard liquor.

meh, I drank a lot of OG 4lokos and I cant really say it tasted good, it taste okay but it was always hard to get the first half of it down if you didnt mix it into jungle juice or something.

The real problem is after the first half you were so drunk that it started to taste good and youd basically slam the last half and another can afterwards.

Those things were legit crazy. Spark and those types were a good balance (but still so bad for you), but 4loko was just on another level.

I remember seeing several people in a previous topic defending this.

s0nicfan posted...

400mg.

A cup of coffee has around 50mg for context. IIRC a large charged lemonade is like 395mg
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-much

Never realized that was considered a limit. I've probably taken at least 600mgs through pills, coffee and soda before when I was dead ass tired.

I cant believe more people arent talking about the fact that a fucking cardiologist was there with a defibrillator and a god damn nursing team.

You wouldnt believe that in a movie.

Tropicalwood posted...

Never realized that was considered a limit. I've probably taken at least 600mgs through pills, coffee and soda before when I was dead ass tired.

Its less of a limit and more of a stuff will probably get weird past here for most people. Caffeine tolerance and sensitivity can vary a ton

Drinking 400mg at once is also much different than eventually reaching 400mg throughout an entire day

Alteres posted...

I cant believe more people arent talking about the fact that a fucking cardiologist was there with a defibrillator and a god damn nursing team.

You wouldnt believe that in a movie.

imagine being in a theater and something happening like that in the movie you're watching, and the person next to you is like, "that's so unrealistic"

has there ever been a confirmation that energy drinks and coffee can lead to heart attacks? seems like whenever media covers a story about a teen being hospitalized for heavy energy drink consumption it turns out they have already had previous health conditions.