Bethan Gaskin, a woman from Lincolnshire outside of London, England, is dead at age 24. Gaskin collapsed at her home while performing a “trick” for her family and died five days later in the local hospital.
According to the New York Post, Gaskin “choked to death while trying to see how many Jaffa Cakes she could put in her mouth for a party trick … blacked out and stopped breathing when the snacks — three-layer cakes a little over 2 inches in diameter — got lodged in her throat as she desperately tried to spit them out.”
Gaskin is the mother of a three-year-old girl, Lilli.
“She looked perfect and so beautiful. It was just like she was sleeping,” Gaskin’s mother told the Post about the final moments with her daughter. “So many people have said they play a similar game with marshmallows. Even my 90-year-old aunt said she does it with Maltesers. This just shows how fragile we are.”
While Gaskin was hospitalized, doctors eventually learned that she had serious brain damage. It was then that she passed away with her family by her side.
“I just told her that Mummy was very sick and the doctors couldn’t make her better so she has died and we can’t see her again,” her mother said about informing the young child of her mother’s death. “We talk about Bethan with Lili and she has asked a few times when we are going to Mummy’s.”
The official cause of death for Bethan is a heart attack, and her family is now warning others about the dangers of food competitions.
“I remember raising my eyebrows when Bethan started the game, thinking ‘how old are you?’ and telling her to spit them out,” Gaskin’s mother said, via FOX News. “She was like a little hamster with her cheeks bulging. She danced off to the toilet to get rid of them and it was only a while later we realized she had been gone a long time.”