A Nevada jury has awarded about $130 million in damages to patients who suffered extreme liver damage after drinking trendy bottled water laced with toxic chemicals.
Five people suffered excruciating pain and loss of control of their limbs after drinking the $2.99 ”alkalized” Real Water that contained hydrazine, a highly flammable and carcinogenic chemical used to make rocket fuel.
Myles Hunwardsen underwent a liver transplant at the age of 29, while Jazmin Schaffer, Tina Hartshorn, Miriam Brody and Christina Sosa all suffered from liver failure.
In October, a state court jury also awarded more than $228 million in damages to several plaintiffs, including family members of a 69-year-old woman who died and a 7-month-old boy who was hospitalized. Both were diagnosed with severe liver failure.
The company admitted negligence and said the chemical likely entered the water during the production process.
It says the water undergoes a seven-stage purification process to remove certain ions, particles and bacteria. It is thought that hydrazine was added to the water during treatment before bottling.
Jazmin Schaffer lost the function of her hands and started shaking uncontrollably while driving
The product was marketed as premium ‘alkaline’ water with healthy detoxifying properties.
According to the Real Water website, the water is passed through a resin bed, a carbon filter and a UV light cleaning unit, among other things, to remove certain ions, particles and bacteria.
It is then treated with the company’s E² technology, which stands for Electron Energized, which adds electrons to the water.
The final product would contain only two ingredients: purified water and potassium bicarbonate, an alkaline mineral.
It is thought that hydrazine, a chemical used in rocket fuel, was added to the water during treatment before bottling.
The water was marketed by Las Vegas-based Real Water before the product was recalled from store shelves in 2021 following the wave of illnesses.
The Clark County District Court jury awarded more than $30 million in damages to the plaintiffs, including Myles Hunwardsen, a Henderson man who underwent a liver transplant at age 29.
The jury asked for an additional $100 million in damages.
The four other plaintiffs were each awarded more than $1 million in damages.
Jazmin Schaffer, 33, started drinking Real Water in October 2020 after her boyfriend had bottles delivered to her home.
They ordered two or three five-gallon jugs every two weeks. Ms Schaffer said she drank about a liter a day, but used the water for everything from cooking to making tea and coffee.
In mid-October, Mrs. Schaffer began to feel ill. She had pain in her stomach, felt ‘very nauseous’, suffered from brain fog and severe fatigue.
She slept more than 12 hours a night and started vomiting several times a day. There was also blood in her vomit.
Mrs. Schaffer went to the emergency room and was told she was simply dehydrated and needed to drink more water.
One day while driving, she lost the function of her hands and started shaking uncontrollably.
“I couldn’t grip the steering wheel,” she tearfully told the jury.
She then went to Spring Valley Hospital where she was admitted. Doctors told her she had liver failure and five times the normal level of liver enzymes.
She was told she may need a liver transplant.
‘It was very scary. “I didn’t know what was going on,” she said.
She was forced to undergo a liver biopsy without any pain medication due to the condition of her liver. She was in pain for a month afterward and said it “hurt to breathe.”
Miriam Brody was 78 when she was taken to Henderson Hospital and treated for liver failure
Tina Hartshorn fought back tears as she gave her testimony
Miriam Brody started drinking Real Water in November 2018 when she was 78. She bought gallon bottles of water at Costco.
She was in a beauty salon when she suddenly felt hot and her face swelled up. Her hands started to tingle and she fainted.
Once she came to, she vomited and had diarrhea. “I felt like I had no control over my whole body,” she told the jury.
She also had a stomach ache and said she had never experienced anything like this before.
‘It was really scary because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Especially when you’re a bit older, you think: this is it.’
She continued to drink Real Water, but a few weeks later she suddenly felt sick again and started shaking, so she called 911.
She was taken to Henderson Hospital, where she she was treated for liver failure.
In October 2020, Tina Hartshorn ordered five-gallon jugs of Real Water for her home in the northern Las Vegas Valley.
She drank the water daily for almost a month before she started feeling sick.
She started vomiting and suspected an ear infection.
“The more water I drank, the worse I got,” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
In November, Ms. Hartshorn was admitted to Centennial Hospital, where she was held for nine days, racking up a $100,000 medical bill in the meantime.
She could hardly speak and could not keep food down. Doctors wondered if she had diabetes because her insulin levels were so low, but she told them she did not.
The verdict handed down on Tuesday was the second large sum in a negligence and product liability case involving AffinityLifestyles.com Inc. and the Real Water brand, which was sold in distinctive blue bottles as premium treated ‘alkaline’ drinking water with healthy detoxifying properties. .
Alkaline water typically has a pH of eight or higher, while standard water has a ‘neutral’ pH of seven.
Some believe the water can reverse the signs of aging or even prevent cancer, although there is no scientific evidence for this, and many experts believe that claims about alkaline water are nothing more than marketing ploys.
The Mayo Clinic recommends drinking plain water.
The Food and Drink Administration (FDA) warned people not to drink the alkaline water
The most high-profile case was that of Myles Hunwardsen (pictured), who had to be taken to hospital for a liver transplant after drinking the company’s water.
Real Water bills itself as alkaline water that can serve as an alternative to tap water, but the FDA claims the water was just tap water mixed with a chemical compound
“We want to send a message to food and beverage manufacturers that they must be committed to quality assurance,” Will Kemp, an attorney who represented the plaintiffs in both lawsuits, said Thursday.
Kemp said more negligence and product liability cases are pending against the company, including one set to begin in May resulting from diagnoses of liver damage in six children who ranged in age from seven months to 11 years old at the time.
Affinitylifestyles.com was led by Brent Jones, who served in the Republican State Assembly from 2016 to 2018. Kemp said Jones has declared bankruptcy and left the state.
Other defendants in the case reached confidential settlements before trial, including Whole Foods Market and Costco Wholesale, which sold the water, and testing meter companies Hanna Instruments and Milwaukee Instruments.
Terrible Herbst, a supermarket chain, reached a settlement during the trial.
During the trial, jurors were told that tests showed Real Water contained hydrazine, a chemical rocket fuel that may have been added to the water during treatment before bottling.
Real Water attorney Joel Odou argued that the company was unintentionally negligent and not reckless Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
He said the company did not know there was hydrazine in the water and did not know how to test it.
The water the company used came from the public water supply in the Las Vegas area, which comes primarily from the Lake Mead Reservoir behind the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, the region’s primary public supplier, monitors and tests 166 different water sources possible contaminants, spokesman Bronson Mack said Thursday. Hydrazine is not one of them.
Noting that the water board was not a defendant in the lawsuits, Mack said the area’s municipal water supply meets or exceeds all federal Safe Drinking Water Act standards.
Real Water was sold for at least eight years, primarily in Central and Southern California, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Utah. It was also promoted on social media and sold online.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Las Vegas-based Clark County Health District issued public warnings not to drink or use the product as of March 2021, and ordered it removed from store shelves.