Ben Williams
There are some things in life you can overdo: one too many drinks, an extra slice of cake, maybe a marathon TV binge. For one man from Barnsley, though, it was fizzy cola bottles that very nearly finished him off.
It all started with what he described as a sudden ‘hankering’ for the chewy Haribo sweets. Nathan Rimmington, 33, decided to treat himself by ordering a giant bag online, the kind meant for sharing at parties or filling pick ’n’ mix tubs for months. Except Nathan didn’t share them. Over the course of three days, he worked his way through the entire 3kg bag.
While this might sound like a heavenly few days for some, it’s easy to forget that all of that is roughly 11,000 calories of pure, sticky, gelatin-packed sugar. Still, it wasn’t the calories that got him. It was what happened next.
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By the end of his sweet spree, Nathan started feeling unwell. Be that as it may, he carried on as normal, even going out for a carvery and finishing what was left of the cola bottles for dessert. He admitted to the BBC: “It’s not the cleverest thing I have ever done in my life – I can’t even look at a cola bottle now.”
Soon after, he hasn’t in a ‘happy world of Haribo’, as the brand’s classic slogan put it. He became so ‘bunged up’ he couldn’t walk or get out of bed. Sweating and in pain, he initially blamed the pork from his Sunday roast.
“I just couldn’t stop eating them,” he said. “The bag was packed to the rafters with cola bottles – like a sandbag.”
By Tuesday, Nathan was in agony. When he saw a doctor, they immediately sent him to the hospital after finding his blood pressure was ‘astronomically high.’
He explained: “They tested me for food poisoning and I had a CT scan, but it all came back clear. But after an internal investigation, they asked if I liked sweets because I was completely blocked up with gelatin.”
Once he confessed to eating 3kg of cola bottles in three days, doctors were stunned he’d survived at all. Nathan spent six days in the hospital and was diagnosed with acute diverticulitis – a sudden inflammation and infection of the large intestine. He was hooked up to IV drips to flush out his system and is now on daily blood pressure medication.
He called: “The doctors were stumped… He was strict but firm with me – I didn’t do it on purpose but it was really stupid.”
Though the doctors found humour in the situation, Nathan’s consultant didn’t hold back in telling him how dangerous it was. He says his lifestyle has since improved, and he hasn’t touched a cola bottle since.
His advice to anyone was short and ironically sweet: “Haribo in moderation.”
Haribo declined to comment.