Researchers say they believe they’ve documented the first known death from alpha-gal syndrome — a red meat allergy caused by tick bites.

The findings, by researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The report says a 47-year-old airplane pilot in New Jersey fell ill four hours after eating a hamburger at a barbecue in 2024. The man’s son found him unconscious on the floor of a bathroom surrounded by vomit. The man was declared dead at a hospital. The autopsy cited a “sudden unexplained death.”

Two weeks before he died, the man had become ill several hours after eating a steak dinner, waking up with abdominal discomfort, writhing in pain, having diarrhea and vomiting. “I thought I was going to die,” he told his son. But the man and his wife decided not to consult a doctor, saying they weren’t sure how to explain what had happened.