On August 25, 2016, while engaging in a make-out session with his 24-year-old girlfriend, Julio got a hickey on his neck, thinking it was harmless since young lovers often give each other hickeys.
As it turns out, the suction from the hickey led to the formation of a blood clot, which made its way to his brain and clogged a delicate blood vessel, causing it to rupture.
From Oddity Central:
After Macías González’s death, several newspapers reported that his older girlfriend had disappeared. At the time, his parents said that they held her responsible for his death, revealing that they had never approved of their relationship, because of the age difference between them. It is unclear whether she was ever charged for what seems like a very clear accidental death.
Many of the Latino news sources that picked up the viral TikTok video don’t bother mentioning the original source, and it made us question whether there was any truth behind this story, or if it was just created for shock value. Luckily, digging deep enough in a Google search reveals several articles from 2016 from reputed news outlets, and even though they don’t really offer a lot of information about Julio’s death, at least they show that this is in fact a true story.
Interestingly, this is not the only time a hickey has been tied to a stroke. Back in 2011, English newspaper The Telegraph reported the case of a 44-year-old woman from New Zealand who ended up getting brain surgery after experiencing loss of movement in her left arm because of a hickey on her neck, near a major artery.
Seems like we can now add hickeys to the ever-growing list of irrational fears.
Don't forget to pass this one on to your kids, folks.
