Combining heartwarming and heartburn into one touching, greasy story, Vice’s Munchies blog is reporting on Jake Booth, a man who recently emerged from a medically induced coma with a desperate need for Fourthmeal. Booth suffered heart failure after a case of bronchitis worsened into pneumonia, because our bodies are terrifying, frail machines. When he awoke on April 10 after being in the coma for 42 days, his first words to his beloved, waiting family were “I want Taco Bell.”
And Taco Bell he received, albeit three weeks later, after his body had recovered enough to handle solid food. Booth downed eight and a half of the fast food giant’s Crunchy Tacos in a single meal, because apparently nothing gives you a hankering for cumin-laced meat slurry like a solitary sojourn in the void.
Smelling that sweet PR goodness—as pungent as twisted cinnamon or the siren scent of a Mountain Dew Baja Blast—Taco Bell itself has also picked up on the story, sending Booth a supply of company-branded swag. It’s also apparently working on a deal to get him free tacos for life, which is either sort of a dick move to pull on a guy who’s literally already died (Booth’s heart stopped for 15 minutes at one point during his ordeal), or a really bad value proposition, given his apparently unkillable nature, and bottomless, eternity-spanning love of a crispy tortilla crunch. (Meanwhile, Booth’s family is asking for non-taco support and donations to help him cover his medical bills, because apparently you can’t live on fun internet stories and limp, greasy lettuce alone.)