An Illinois man claims that a hot sauce he sampled while on vacation last year which caused him to fall to the ground in a seizure may have saved his life. Randy Schmitz, 30, of Orland Park, Illinois, was sampling the Flashbang hot sauce at Pepper Palace in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when started having convulsions. When he was given medical treatment, an MRI scan of his brain showed a cancerous tumor in its early stages. Randy Schmitz, 30, was sampling a hot sauce made of scorpion and habanero peppers at the Pepper Palace in Myrtle Beach when he had a seizure . During a post-seizure brain scan, doctors noticed a cancerous brain tumor in its early stages. Schmitz flew home early from his vacation and had the tumor removed two days later . 'If I didn't try that, I think something eventually would have triggered the seizure and I would've found out, but that cancer tumor would've grown in my head,' Schmitz told the Chicago Tribune. Flashbang hot sauce contains Carolina reaper, scorpion and habanero peppers. Customers have to sign a waiver before tasting it. After the seizure, the special education job coach flew home early from his family vacation and underwent brain surgery two days later. Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital removed a two-and-a-half-inch by one-and-a-half-inch malignant tumor from Schmitz's frontal lobe. After Schmitz had the tumor removed, he was treated with radiation, and he has home more month of chemotherapy treatment . Jeffrey Raizer, medical director of neuro-oncology at Northwestern Medical Hospital, said that though it can't be proven that the hot sauce triggered the seizure, the tasting conditions, including dehydration and stress, match those known to lead to seizures. 'If you have a lot of hot sauce and you're sweating a lot, people can have dehydration and it can cause seizures,' Raizer told the Tribune. 'If you eat a habanero pepper, it's a big jolt to your system.' Raizer added that the seizure allowed Schmitz to be treated with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy before the tumor got worse. He has completed his radiation treatments and has one more month of chemotherapy treatment. He got married two weeks after his diagnosis. Schmitz was so grateful that the tumor was spotted that he wrote a letter to Pepper Palace saying, 'Your Flashbang Pepper Sauce SAVED MY LIFE!!!' Schmitz was diagnosed with the brain tumor just weeks before he was set to get married to his wife. Despite his surgery and treatments, he and his wife still walked down the aisle on time . Schmitz was so grateful that he wrote Pepper Palace in January to thank the company for its involvement in his seizure. 'Your Flashbang Pepper Sauce SAVED MY LIFE!!!!' he wrote in an email to the company. Pepper Palace posted his email on their website, along with the response: 'Way to go, Randy, you are truly a Wall of Flame survivor!' Schmitz was sent a box of hot sauce, T-shirts, golf balls and other souvenirs from the store. He admits, however, he's still 'a little bit nervous' to open the bottle of Flashbang.
Randy Schmitz, 30, was sampling the Flashbang hot sauce at the Pepper Palace in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when he had a seizure . Customers have to sign a waiver before tasting the Flashbang sauce . A post-seizure MRI scan showed a cancerous tumor in its early stages . The tumor was removed and Schmitz has completed his radiation treatments and has one more month of chemotherapy treatment .