A 14-year-old whose family said he had eaten a chip made with two of the hottest peppers in the world died of cardiopulmonary arrest, according to a medical examiner’s report released on Thursday, which noted that he had eaten a spicy substance and had a heart condition.
The report found that the teenager, Harris Wolobah of Worcester, Mass., died on Sept. 1 of “cardiopulmonary arrest in the setting of recent ingestion of food substance with high capsaicin concentration in a person with cardiomegaly and myocardial bridging of the left anterior descending coronary artery.”
Capsaicin is the chemical compound found in chili peppers that causes a burning sensation. Cardiomegaly is commonly known as an enlarged heart. And myocardial bridging refers to a coronary artery that passes through a band of heart muscle instead of lying on top of it.
The Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said the manner of death “could not be determined.” Examples of the manner of death in other cases include “natural,” “accident” and “homicide.”
Lois Wolobah, Harris’s mother, declined to comment on the report on Thursday. She has said previously that she believed that the single Paqui brand tortilla chip that her son ate hours before he died jeopardized his health.
The chip, dusted with two very hot peppers, the Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper, had a label on the box that read, “One Chip Challenge” and carried a warning — “Inside: One Extremely Hot Chip.” It came in a coffin-shaped box that bore an image of a skull with a snake coiled around it.
Marketing materials for the chip dared customers to wait as long as possible after eating the chip before eating or drinking anything, and then to post their reactions on social media.
In an interview in September, Ms. Wolobah said that her son’s school had called to report that he was sick and that she should pick him up. When she arrived, Harris was clutching his stomach in the nurse’s office, she said.
Ms. Wolobah said she took her son home, but after about two hours he passed out and was rushed to a hospital, where he died.
Paqui chips were made by Amplify Snack Brands, a subsidiary of the Hershey Company.
About a week after Harris’s death, the company said it was pulling the chip from store shelves “out of an abundance of caution” and that it was offering refunds for the product, which was priced at about $9.99 for a single serving.
“We care about all of our consumers and have made the decision to remove the product from shelves,” a company spokeswoman, Kim Metcalfe, said in a statement in September. “The product’s label clearly states it is not for children or anyone sensitive to spicy foods or who has food allergies, is pregnant or has underlying health conditions.”
Ms. Metcalfe did not immediately respond to messages on Thursday. In September, she said that the company was “deeply saddened” by Harris’s death, adding it was expressing “our condolences to the family.”