Man dies in taco eating contest


Last month I posted about the weird practice of food-eating competitions and said that it can’t be good for people to force-feed themselves to excess.

Well, the worst has happened. A man has died while taking part in a taco-eating contest.

Dana Hutchings, 41, of Fresno, died Tuesday night shortly after arriving at a hospital, said Tony Botti, a Fresno sheriff spokesman.

An autopsy on Hutchings will be done Thursday to determine a cause of death, Botti said. It was not immediately known how many tacos the man had eaten or whether he had won the contest.

Matthew Boylan, who watched Tuesday’s taco eating contest from his seat in the stadium, told the Fresno Bee he quickly noticed Hutchings because “he was eating so fast compared to the other two [contestants]”.

“It was like he’d never eaten before,” Boylan said. “He was just shoving the tacos down his mouth without chewing.”

He said Hutchings collapsed and hit his face on a table about seven minutes into the contest, then fell to the ground. The eating contest ended immediately.

This is not a ‘sport’ that should be encouraged.

Comments

  1. johnson catman says

    An autopsy on Hutchings will be done Thursday to determine a cause of death, Botti said. It was not immediately known how many tacos the man had eaten or whether he had won the contest.

    Well, since he gave his life for the contest, let’s hope the other participants withdrew gracefully and allowed Hutchings to win the trophy posthumously. (/s)

  2. says

    “This is not a ‘sport’ that should be encouraged.”

    I agree, and it should apply to all sports where people can die. My city is currently being sued as a result of boxer dying during a match.

  3. Ridana says

    it should apply to all sports where people can die.

    That would be pretty much all of them, Katie. I think we might still be left with rhythmic gymnastics? I’ve never heard of anyone dying from that. Kuruta. Yeah, we could probably still play karuta.

  4. mnb0 says

    @2, 3, 5: yup -- FM Nikalaos Karapanos died from a cardiac arrest during a tournament game of chess (August 10th, 2009, Chaldika). So perhaps karuta is too risky as well.

  5. says

    @5 The reference is to an infamous interview of Sarah Palin by Katie Couric, during which Couric asked Palin (in an un-planned question posed during the filming of B-roll) what newspapers and magazines Palin read which shaped her worldview. Palin responded: “All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.” This response was widely mocked, most famously on Saturday Night Live.

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