Pa. teen sues Panera, says charged lemonade sent him into cardiac arrest

An Allegheny County teen has filed a lawsuit against the Panera restaurant chain, claiming that its caffeinated Charged Lemonade sent him into a cardiac arrest.

In the suit, filed in in federal court in Philadelphia on Monday, Luke Adams, 18, said he ordered a large Mango Yuzu Citrus Charged Lemonade and a chicken sandwich at a Panera restaurant on March 9, according to TribLive.

Adams then went to see a movie with his friends around 7 p.m. While sitting in the theater, a friend noticed he was making strange sounds and realized he was going into cardiac arrest.

Luckily, two nurses and a cardiologist were in the audience and began performing CPR. After a defibrillator was used to shock him, his heart began pumping again, although it was irregular, TribLive said.

He was taken to a hospital, where he went into seizures and had to be intubated with a ventilator.

“He was about as close as you can come to being dead,” Dr. Andrew Pogozelski, chief of cardiology at Allegheny Health Network Forbes Hospital in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, who treated Adams, told NBC News. “This was about as unlucky as you can get for this to happen to an 18-year-old, otherwise healthy person — but as lucky as you can get for people in the movie theater to know what they were doing.”

The lawsuit says that doctors suggested the “heavy caffeine intake” from the lemonade might have been a trigger for the incident. Doctors reportedly found no abnormalities and his family does not have a history of sudden cardiac death, NBC News said.

“As a result of drinking Panera Charged Lemonade, Luke’s life has been impacted physically, emotionally, socially and financially,” the lawsuit said.

Adams currently has a cardioverter defibrillator implanted in his chest to ensure he doesn’t go into cardiac arrest again. The lawsuit also says he suffers from PTSD and anxiety.

“Every night when I go to bed, the whole thing replays in my mind,” Adams’ mother, Lisa Feyes said to NBC. “It’s really hard for me to watch Luke walk out the door.”

Among other things, the lawsuit claims that the large caffinated drink exceeds the combined caffeine content of 12 ounces of Red Bull and 16 ounces of a Monster Energy Drink, TribLive reported.

Panera restaurants phased out its Charged Sips line of drinks earlier this month after it has faced multiple lawsuits claiming the caffeinated drinks led to the deaths of people with heart conditions.

“We listened to more than 30,000 guests about what they wanted from Panera, and are focusing next on the broad array of beverages we know our guests desire — ranging from exciting, on-trend flavors, to low sugar and low-caffeine options,” the spokesperson said at the time.

There are currently two other lawsuits relating to the drinks. One was filed last fall by the family of 21-year old Sarah Katz, a University of Pennsylvania student with a heart condition, who died after consuming the drink. A second lawsuit followed in December when the family of a Florida man with chromosomal deficiency disorder and a developmental delay died after drinking the lemonade.