In 2019, Natasha took part in a frog poison purging ritual. Minutes later, she was dead.

Natasha Lechner had just taken part in a purging ritual minutes before she died in her home in March 2019.

That day, in Mullumbimby, NSW, the 39-year-old had Kambo, a poison derived from the Amazonian giant tree frog, applied to five small burns on her chest and arm, an inquest has heard. 

The ritual is claimed to supposedly rid the body of toxins and sees participants apply the poison to small dot-like burns on their skin to induce vomiting.

Moments after the poison was applied, Lechner, who had trained as a Kambo practitioner two months earlier, fainted. 

"She sat up and grabbed my arm and just looked at me and said: 'It’s not good'," Victoria Sinclair, who took part in the ritual, told an inquest this week, according to The Guardian. 

"She then fainted sitting up."

Sinclair reportedly administered CPR. However, she did not have a phone nor did she know the number of emergency services. 

A flatmate returned home shortly after and called an ambulance. 

But by the time it arrived five minutes later, Lechner had died and was unable to be revived, according to the ABC. 

Four years later, a coronial inquest is now investigating whether the ritual caused Lechner's sudden death.

According to the ABC, the court heard the most likely cause of death was an acute cardiac event.

Medical Director at the NSW Poisons Information Centre, Associate Professor Darren Roberts, said Kambo likely played a role in the 39-year-old's death.

"Tash had a perfect heart, there was no evidence of heart disease," he said, as per the publication.

At the time of Lechner's death, the use of Kambo was legal in NSW. However, it was later banned in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in 2021.

As Naren Gunja, a Clinical and Forensic Toxicologist at the University of Sydney, points out, taking part in a Kambo ritual is "dangerous" and can lead to death. 

"Most people who go through the ritual don't die, but the occasional person does," he told Mamamia, speaking about the drug more broadly. 

During a Kambo ritual, secretions of the frog, which is found in the Amazonian forest in South America, are rubbed onto a person's skin, causing "various effects" to the body. 

"The thing that's most obvious is people feel very nauseated, dizzy and vomit. But it also can cause people to have palpitations, to faint, have dizziness and their blood pressure drops," he explained. 

"It also can make people unconscious at the same time."

Gunja added "there's no evidence to suggest [Kambo] has any therapeutic benefit, or is able to detoxify anything or cure anything." 

While it's unclear how common the ritual is, he said, "every once in a while we hear about this practice... and people procuring this product on the internet and doing it as some part of a ritual or part of some kind of alternative medicine."

For those thinking about using Kamba in rituals, his message his clear: "don't do it".

"People absolutely shouldn't be doing it. Nobody should be doing it. But in particular, children, pregnant women and anybody... It's not a safe practice by any stretch of the imagination."

The inquest continues this week.

Feature Image: Facebook/ABC.