Mexican Teen Dies After A Love Bite From Girlfriend Leads To Stroke

Talk about the kiss of death.

A Mexican teen has died after receiving a love bite — also called a hickey — from his girlfriend, reports the Sun. Julio Macias Gonzalez, 17, started having convulsions at the dinner table with his family after spending the evening with his girlfriend. Unsure about what had caused the convulsions, his parents called the emergency services, and while the Mirror reports that the paramedics were quickly dispatched to the scene, Gonzalez could not be saved despite their best efforts.

Later, reports suggested that the doctors believed that the young man had died because of a love bite. The suction of the love bite caused a blood clot that traveled to Julio’s brain and caused him to have a stroke.

Now, the family of the teenager is blaming his 24-year-old girlfriend for his death, even as local reports suggested that the woman had absconded amid growing fears that she will be held responsible for Julio’s demise. Moreover, the Daily Mail reports that Julio’s parents were not happy with the relationship because of the difference in the ages of the two lovers.

Mexican teenage boy dies after a love bite from his girlfriend gave him a stroke https://t.co/CsJJymeIO8

— IBTimes UK (@IBTimesUK) August 28, 2016

Love bites, or hickeys, are bruise-like marks on a person’s body and are generally formed by suction on the upper layers of a partner’s skin. The suction on the small area leads to blood vessels under the skin to burst — causing bruises on most occasions. But these bruises generally heal in a week’s time, and there are no particular cures prescribed by doctors, except applying ice to the affected area to reduce the swelling.

In Julio’s case, it is believed that the suction by his girlfriend might have led to a blood clot or thrombosis, which prevents blood from properly reaching the brain. According to the World Heart Federation, blood clots could also travel to the brain through a process called embolism, which ultimately leads to a partial or total blockage of blood to the affected brain vessels. This could, in turn, lead to a stroke, and doctors suspect this is what might have caused Julio’s death.

While it is an unusual occurrence — given that most people might have received hickeys at some point in their lives — what happened with the Mexican teen is not completely unprecedented.

According to Stuff, in 2010, an Auckland woman was left partially paralyzed by a love bite from her partner. The 44-year-old woman lost all movement in her left arm, leading doctors to suspect that she had suffered a stroke. However, the only visible injury doctors could find was a faint love bite on the right of her neck near an artery. On that occasion, medical professionals all over the world were completely taken aback with the development.

Dr. Teddy Wu, who worked in the neurology department at Christchurch Hospital, had said at the time that it was the first time that he had ever seen somebody hospitalized after receiving a love bite.

“We looked around the medical literature and that example of having a lovebite causing something like that hasn’t been described before.”

The death of the Mexican teen has led to the articulation of a wide range of emotions on social media. While most people have accepted the fact that Julio’s case is an extremely rare one, others have argued the act of giving a hickey during lovemaking is an unhealthy habit which must be avoided.

Some people have even called for the girlfriend’s head, arguing that she should be charged with manslaughter for the Mexican teen’s death.

[Image via ThinkstockPhotos]