Leah Sarah Betts was a schoolgirl from Latchingdon in Essex. She came to national attention from the extensive media coverage and moral panic that followed her death several days after her 18th birthday.
On her birthday party, November 13, she took an ecstasy tablet, and, four hours later, collapsed into a coma, from which she did not recover. Subsequently, it was discovered that the direct cause of her death was water intoxication. The press was quick to report that Leah's death was an example of the dangers of illegal drugs in general, and ecstasy in particular. Leah was from a quite ordinary family; she lived with her father (an ex-police officer) and her stepmother (a nurse). The fact that her life reflected so many other middle class families in Britain may have contributed to the sense of shock around the country after her death.
It was suggested that the pill she had taken was from a "contaminated batch." Not long afterward, a major 1,500-site poster campaign used a photograph of a smiling Leah Betts with the caption Sorted: Just one ecstasy tablet took Leah Betts. The campaign made no mention of the crucial role water intoxication played in her death. Anarchist punk band Chumbawamba responded with their own "anti-poster" reading Distorted: you are just as likely to die from eating a bay leaf as from an ecstasy tablet.
An inquest determined that her death was actually not directly due to ecstasy consumption, but rather the result of the large quantity of water she had consumed, apparently in observation of an advisory warning commonly given to ravers to drink water to avoid dehydration resulting from the exertion of dancing continuously for hours. Leah had been at home with friends and had not been dancing, yet consumed about 7 litres (15 pints) of water in less than 90 minutes, resulting in water intoxication and hyponatremia (low sodium levels; in this case due to the dilution of blood), which in turn led to serious swelling of the brain (cerebral oedema), irreparably damaging it.
However, SIADH caused by the ecstasy, reducing Betts' ability to urinate, may have exacerbated her hyponatremia. At the inquest it was stated by renowned anti-drug campaigner and toxicologist Professor John Henry (known briefly by the nickname "Mr E"), who had previously warned the public of the danger of ecstasy causing death by dehydration, "If Leah had taken the drug alone she might well have survived. If she had drunk the amount of water alone she would have survived."
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