Mushroom Poisoning at California Nursing Home Has Caused 4 Deaths
Four residents of a California nursing home have died after being accidentally fed poisonous mushrooms that were picked on the property.
California health authorities indicate that a worker at the six-bed Gold Age Villa senior care home, in Loomis, California, served the mushrooms to residents without realizing they were poisonous.
The mushrooms were served in a soup on November 8. Of the six residents in the home, the only one who did not fall ill was the one who did not eat the soup.
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Learn MoreResidents at the nursing home who developed the food poisoning include Dorothy Mary Hart, 92, Barbara Lopes, 86, Teresa Olesniewicz, 73, and Frank Warren Blodget, 90. State health officials and the Placer County Sheriff’s Department has classified the deaths as an accident.
Lopes and Olesniewicz died on November 9, and the caregiver and three other residents were hospitalized. Of those, Blodget and Hart died later, with Hart having died after being released and placed in another nursing home.
The deaths come as some specialists have reported seeing an increase in mushroom poisonings nationwide. Experts are unsure as to why the numbers have increased in recent years and some theorize that people have been picking their own mushrooms more often due to the bad economy. The mushrooms used in this specific case have not been publicly identified.
Most poisonous mushrooms kill through liver toxicity, caused by the poison amatoxin. It is colorless and odorless and can survive cooking and freezing.
Symptoms can include vomiting and diarrhea, but often do not appear until 12 hours or more after the mushrooms have been consumed. The poisoned liver stops producing the proteins it and the body needs to survive and the liver dies, leading to liver failure and, frequently, death. The death rate, if treated in a timely fashion, is about 15%. However the elderly, those with a history of liver problems, and those with compromised immune systems are likely to be more at risk.
There is no law in California against serving wild mushrooms or other foraged foods to nursing home residents.
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1 Comments
JeanetteNovember 30, 2012 at 2:29 pm
We must NEVER NEVER call the ones that grow on trees or stumps or the ones that grow in the yard mushrooms!!! We must call them TOADSTOOLS as to not confuse children only call the ones on the store mushrooms.... There is also a fungus that comes under the bark of a tree as it rots THIS is also deadly . and it is NOT a pleasant death. they will distroy your liver, seasures etc.... THERE IS NO A[Show More]We must NEVER NEVER call the ones that grow on trees or stumps or the ones that grow in the yard mushrooms!!! We must call them TOADSTOOLS as to not confuse children only call the ones on the store mushrooms.... There is also a fungus that comes under the bark of a tree as it rots THIS is also deadly . and it is NOT a pleasant death. they will distroy your liver, seasures etc.... THERE IS NO ANTIDOTE.... PLEASE be allert I pot a bag over my hand and gather them up with as much dirt as I can gather with my hand then pull the bag over the toadstools for throwing away in the big trash can outside so no one can get to them, this is a daily thing that is done they only take hrs for them to grow and our children and puppys are down low to that level .... PLEASE DO NOT DISREGUARD THIS WARNING !!! May God keep these poor people