On March 9, Luke Adams grabbed a chicken sandwich and a large “Charged Lemonade” drink from a Panera in Monroeville. Shortly afterwards, Luke, who had just turned 18, went with friends to a showing of “Dune 2” at the Cinemark theater at the Monroeville Mall. And until days later, that’s all he remembers.
His family, on the other hand, remembers everything about that evening. They were sitting in their living room watching “The Notebook.” His stepfather, Scott Feyes, is a pre-hospital nurse at AHN Forbes Hospital and an assistant fire chief, and had his portable radio nearby in case of an emergency call.
Feyes heard a radio call for an unresponsive 18-year-old at the Cinemark movie theater and, not wanting to worry Luke’s mom, Lisa, he casually texted Luke, “Are you OK?”
When he didn’t hear back, he texted again: “Answer this text, please.”
He texted a third time, “Please, please let me know you’re OK,” before calling the dispatch center to see what he could find out.
The dispatch center didn’t have a name yet, and Scott and Lisa decided to find out for themselves what was going on, driving to the movie theater. On their way, Scott received a call from a Monroeville police officer: The emergency call was for Luke, and he had gone into cardiac arrest during the movie.
Lisa, also a nurse, was well aware of the low odds of surviving a cardiac arrest out of the hospital. She became physically ill with panic.
“Scott and I, we've done CPR dozens of times, hundreds probably, and intubated people — we’ve seen lots of things in our career,” she said. “But this was my son. This made it a whole different story.”
The story — as Lisa and Scott can piece it together — was that Luke was sitting in the movie theater when a friend noticed him making a strange noise. The friend elbowed him, telling him to stop, and when Luke continued, the friend realized that Luke’s chest wasn’t moving.
His friends — about half a dozen teenagers who had been close since childhood — flew into action. They laid Luke down and yelled for help in the theater. One called 911 and another ran to find an AED.
Two nurses and a cardiologist happened to also be in that showing of “Dune 2,” and began CPR. Luke was shocked twice by the AED before paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital.
Luke’s dad and stepmother live close to the movie theater, and made it there in time to see him before he was taken by ambulance. Lisa and Scott met them at Forbes Hospital, where Luke was breathing but not stable.
Based on readings from the AED machine, his cardiologist Andrew Pogozelski believes that his heart had gone into ventricular fibrillation, a dangerous abnormal rhythm where the heart essentially quivers but doesn’t pump blood. The shocks from the AED got his heart pumping again, but the rhythm remained irregular even as he arrived at the hospital. There, he had a seizure and needed to be intubated.
Luke spent two days intubated in the ICU, and six days in the hospital total. He doesn’t remember anything in between walking into the movie theater and the last few days in the hospital. There are no signs of permanent damage to his heart, though just in case of further issues, he now has a defibrillator implanted in his chest that will likely be there for the next 25 years, if not the rest of his life.
“This was just a horrible, life-changing experience that had the best outcome we could ever hope [for],” said Luke’s mom, Lisa.
The most likely cause, his family believes, was the Panera Charged Lemonade, which has been linked to two deaths since it was introduced in 2022. Panera previously listed a large Charged Lemonade, which Luke drank quickly, as having an estimated 390 milligrams of caffeine. The company has since updated its nutrition information to account for ice, and now lists the 30-ounce large size at 237 mg.
By comparison, one 12-ounce can of Celsius has 200 mg, an 8.4-ounce Red Bull has 77 mg and a 16-ounce grande Starbucks dark roast has 265 mg. A Bang Energy drink, which has one of the highest caffeine content of any prepacked beverage, has 300 mg per 16 ounces.
The Food and Drug Administration recommends that adults limit caffeine consumption to 400 mg per day.
Luke had no known heart issues, or health issues of any kind. “He’s never even had strep throat,” said his mom.
After his cardiac arrest, a cardiac MRI found no structural abnormalities in the heart, and genetic testing did not reveal any other possible conditions. Doctors also can’t find an underlying seizure disorder, and believed the seizure was caused by the lack of oxygen to the brain during cardiac arrest.
Pogozelski could not definitively say that the lemonade had caused the cardiac arrest, but said that caffeine is a known trigger of heart issues.
“Caffeine certainly predisposes you to have abnormal rhythms,” he said. “It’s a stimulant. We always advise people who have any type of abnormal rhythm to avoid it.”
In a case somewhat similar to Luke’s, a 28–year-old woman in Rhode Island sued Panera in January after she alleged she developed an irregular heartbeat after drinking a Charged Lemonade. The woman, like Luke, had no known heart conditions and was in good health.
A warning on the Charged Lemonade page on Panera’s website reads, “Use in moderation. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR children, people sensitive to caffeine, pregnant or nursing women.”
Panera did not respond to a request for comment.
Luke, a high school junior, is slowly getting his life back to normal. He is restricted from driving for six months, but is back at school and at his part-time job working the donation door at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop.
His family is thankful that he has recovered — and feels incredibly lucky for his friends and bystanders who helped in the movie theater, as well as for the care he received at Forbes Hospital, where Scott still works and Lisa worked in the past. “I was a volunteer here as a kid,” said Lisa. “This is like family here.”
His family is grateful for Luke’s “miracle” outcome, but would like to warn others about the drink that they believe almost took his life.
“My goal is to have this drink removed,” said Lisa, “so that nobody has to ever go through this again.”
Anya Sostek: asostek@post-gazette.com
First Published: May 4, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: May 5, 2024, 2:56 a.m.