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An Australian man became paraplegic after he swallowed a slug as a dare at a friend’s party and contracted rat lungworm.

Rugby player Sam Ballard was 19 years old when he ate the garden pest in 2010. He quickly fell ill and was rushed to hospital.

He became infected by the parasite Angiostrongylus cantonensis, which is commonly found in rats but can infect slugs and snails when they eat rat droppings.

In humans it rarely causes an infection in the brain.

Mr Ballard, from Sydney, contracted eosinophilic meningoencephalitis and fell into a coma for 420 days.

His mother, Katie, said that the incident completely changed his life.

“It's devastated, changed his life forever, changed my life forever. It’s huge. The impact is huge,” she said, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Ballard was eventually released from hospital, in a wheelchair, three years after he became unwell.

Now aged 28, he is tube fed, suffers seizures and is unable to control his body temperature.

His friends rallied around him to raise money for his 24-hour care, but with costs soaring, his mother applied to the National Disability Insurance Scheme when her son became eligible for a $492,000 grant in 2016.

But late last year the grant was slashed to around $135,000, leaving the family heavily in debt.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme told The Daily Telegraph they are "working closely with the Ballard family" to increase the grant.