Siobhan Crummey - An Australian boy takes a dare, not knowing it'll kill him

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/health/man-dies-after-eating-slug-on-dare/index.html

Eariler this year, a 19 year old Australian boy named Sam Ballard was dared by a friend to eat a slug that was crawling across his porch, and he did. Later, he felt pain in his legs and was sent to the ER. After that, he became paralyzed, fell into a coma, and died earlier this week. The disease he got was called the rat lung disease. Rat Lung disease is when a rat has a parasite that eventually comes out in the rats waste. When the parasite is consumed by a worm or slug, it becomes toxic. When Sam swallowed the slug, he immediately contracted the parasite and suffered with it for almost a year after ultimately dying.

This related to history because of the bubonic plague, even though its not killing thousands of people per da, but because it is caused by rats. The audience is the world, because this happened in Australia, and Australia has a low population, so its important to tell the world that this is fatal. The purpose is to warn people to not eat slugs unless you know its clean. The point of view is an American, witnessing this horrible event from another country, so its different, because even though we still have that here, its not as much of a threat. The reason this is important is because a 19 year old died because of this, so people need to be careful.