Newfoundlander Meghan Waterman goes viral with #ALSicebucketchallenge

There have been thousands of ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos posted in the last week, but the video from Torbay's Meghan Waterman has not only been noticed — it's gone viral.

Buzzfeed has declared her YouTube video the "Funniest, Most Heroic Video Ever." Friday morning, it had received over 500,000 views.

But Waterman has a hazy recollection of what happened. She recorded the video after undergoing removal of four wisdom teeth and while still under the influence of an anaesthetic. Her mother put her to bed and told her to stay in her room. Waterman had other ideas.

The video shows Waterman taking the challenge with a swollen face and sometimes bleeding mouth. She's also worried about whether her mother is going to catch her.

I was kind of confused on why I did that. I was like, 'Oh, that's me doing weird things on the internet.'- Meghan Waterman

"All I remember is I was on Facetime with my friend and it just seemed so important that I had to do it. So I hung up on her and I ran out into my kitchen and I filmed it," she told CBC.

"All I remember next is I woke up, and then I looked on Facebook, and I guess I posted it when I was asleep. I was kind of confused on why I did that. I was like, 'Oh, that's me doing weird things on the internet,'"

Waterman doesn't know how her challenge came to the attention of internet heavyhitters like Buzzfeed. She posted it on Tumblr and it started to got lots of likes and reblogs. People were asking her to post it on YouTube, so she decided to before someone else did.

Positive reaction

"I've gotten a lot of good reaction actually. The only kind of bad reactions I've got are mostly on Facebook and that's kind of the adults, saying ,'Wow, why would this teenager do that? That's pretty stupid.' That doesn't really bother me because I'm getting a lot of nice messages, saying how I made someone's day.and how I made someone smile," she said.

"And it's just amazing that a little video like that can have that change on someone."

Waterman said another upside is that people are watching other videos she's posted of her singing covers of songs she likes.

Waterman said she's not worried about what happens when her 15 minutes of fame ends; she's happy about the attention she's received, and making people happy.

"I was going to donate. I wasn't going to do the video at first because I didn't have time because I was getting my wisdom teeth out," she said.

"But I guess I decided to do both." 

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was started to raise money for people suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease. Thousands of people have taken the challenge of pouring ice on their heads or donating. Most are doing both.

ALS Canada announced via Twitter Friday morning that it had received $2 million in donations.