Hickeys were once the proud symbol of a great make-out session. Now, they're the potential cause of strokes in patients swapping spit.

A 17-year-old teenager recently began convulsing while at the dinner table with his parents after a long night with his 24-year-old girlfriend.

When emergency vehicles arrived, it was already too late and the boy had passed away. According to local media reports, doctors believed that the suction of the hickey, or love bite, resulted in a blood clot, which travelled to the boy’s brain and caused the stroke.

That’s right, the boy died of a hickey. His parents immediately blamed the older girlfriend for corrupting their child and causing the sensual blemish. The girlfriend is currently in hiding.

As weird as this story sounds, it’s actually not the first case of a love bite causing a stroke.

In 2011, a 44-year-old woman from New Zealand arrived in the ER after experiencing stroke-like symptoms while watching TV.

Doctors were unsure of what caused the stroke until they noticed the love bites on her neck. In the medical report, they concluded that the hickey damaged a major artery, launching a blood clot into her heart causing a minor stroke. Fortunately the patient was able to make a full recovery although doctors warned about the dangers of the world's dumbest sexual act.

Why do we give or receive hickeys? We will never know. Nonetheless, the inherent danger in hickeys will forever reside in the back of our minds as we contemplate enjoying the weird act of suctioning one’s neck.