Couple nearly killed their three friends after inviting them round for a death cap mushroom-laced stir fry – and one dinner guest may have only survived because of his choice of starter
A diner of five was lucky enough to walk away with their lives after getting deadly death cap mushrooms during a stir-fry.
It was October 22, 1988 — a Saturday night — and John Duncan and his wife Teresa were entertaining friends at their home in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA.
Among the guests were Glenda Sabolyk, 41, and Andy Clark, 33, who were about to announce the exciting news that they were engaged. Joining them was Andy’s mother Isun Pak, 52.
The special ingredient in the stir-fry was wild mushrooms harvested during an outing in the picturesque Columbia River Gorge.
But like Erin Patterson’s beef wellington dish in Leongatha, Victoria, the dish contained death caps for 34 years. No one in the Duncans’ home knew the mushrooms were deadly, though the species was abundant in the region and deaths were not unheard of.
The aftermath of the catastrophic dinner would test the friendship of those present.
US Customs appraiser John Duncan and his wife Teresa, both in their early 40s, organized the stir-fry dinner that landed five people in the hospital, four of them needing a liver transplant and a quirk of fate that saved John’s life and liver.
Alex and Vera Mishchuk were in their early 30s in 1997 when they encountered Death Cap mushrooms that are abundant in the Northwest of the US, but luckily they survived
Mrs. Duncan and some of their guests picked the mushrooms on a trip to the canyon and brought them home.
The group had gone looking for chestnuts in the gorge and had also picked two small containers of mushrooms.
Mr Duncan later said he had asked his wife ‘if they were safe’ and that she called a friend who told her: ‘Don’t you dare eat those mushrooms without getting them checked.’
The dinner guests were “confident that the mushrooms were safe” and were tossed into the “oriental stir-fry” and served. Ms Pak had used an imprecise ‘rice water’ test, where mushrooms are supposed to turn red if they are poisonous.
Still, Mrs. Duncan had kept one plastic-wrapped mushroom in her refrigerator just in case.
The friendly family dinner, which ended up with five people in the hospital and four of them requiring liver transplants, turned catastrophic due to Death Cap mushrooms being bred in the picturesque town.
The Duncans’ potentially deadly dinner received widespread media attention after four of the five eventually required liver transplants, and only a large bowl of oat bran saved John Duncan.
No. Duncan didn’t eat as much of the meal as others, which may have saved his life, or at least his liver.
He had been eating oat bran for six weeks to lower his cholesterol and ate a large bowl just before stir-frying.
The next morning, the Duncans and their three guests were admitted to Portland area hospitals at high risk of liver failure.
Ms. Duncan and Ms. Pak were sent to Oregon Health Sciences University, where Ms. Duncan was approved for a liver transplant within a week. Mrs. Pak remained under observation while Mr. Duncan was doing better.
Ms. Sabolyk and Mr. Clark were flown to the University of California Medical Center, where Ms. Sabolyk underwent a four and a half hour liver transplant and Mr. Clark was scheduled for surgery.
Another case of a family, this time in California in 1996, becoming seriously ill after eating Death Cap mushrooms (pictured right), meaning a 13-year-old girl needed a liver transplant
Like Erin Patterson’s guests in South Gippsland, Victoria, the Duncans and their guests first went to a local hospital (above), but were so seriously ill that they were transferred to larger facilities and placed on a liver transplant list.
Dr. Emmet Keefe said the only reason Mr. Duncan didn’t need liver surgery was because he hadn’t eaten much of the meal.
In November of that year, the Duncans gave an interview to the Statesman Journal recounting what happened at the dinner, with Mr. Duncan saying they remained friends with the other victims of the mushroom poisoning.
“It was an accident,” he said, “we just ran into something.”
In January 1989, Mrs Duncan underwent another operation after experiencing ‘acute abdominal pain’, and had ‘a half meter of bowel removed’.
The doctors said she and the other three transplant patients were doing well and her new liver was working “absolutely perfect.”
Alex and Vera Mishchuk survived their Death Cap mushroom experience and now have an extended family in the US Northwest, where Amanita phalloides still lives
Two years later, a woman from Scottsburg in southwestern Oregon died of liver failure after eating death cap mushrooms.
Gertrude Lewis, 65, was an “experienced mushroom picker,” but nevertheless mistook Amanita Phalloides for benign wild fungi and ate them.
She first went to the doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms, but was transferred to the hospital and died almost a week after eating the mushrooms.
Her daughter, Carol Ware, said relatives had instructed doctors not to perform any extraordinary treatment, including a transplant, to save Ms Lewis’s life.
“My mother was a Christian lady and very devout,” Mrs. Ware said. “She used to tell me, ‘I don’t want any organs in me, and I don’t want to be hooked up to a machine.’
Erin Patterson allegedly cooked Amanita phalloides mushrooms in her Beef Wellington dish in the Victorian town of Leongatha in late July
Between 30 and 40 family members gathered at the hospital when the decision was made to let Mrs. Lewis die. Mrs. Ware said, “we were at peace knowing we had put her in the hands of Jesus.”
In 1997, two Vancouver residents were hospitalized after accidentally eating death cap mushrooms.
Ukrainian migrants Vera Mishchuk and her husband Alex, both 32, were admitted to Oregon Health Sciences University after consuming Amanita phalloides mushrooms gathered around trees near their home.
Warm, wet weather had produced a huge crop of mushrooms in the area.
The Mishchuks both survived and are still living with their extended family in the Northwest of the US.
Don and Gail Patterson did not survive Beef Wellington’s meal. Police think it contains Death Cap mushrooms or Amanita phalloides, which cause deaths worldwide
Gail and Don Patterson were buried together earlier this week at Korumburra Cemetery in a ceremony attended by a group of only close family and friends
On July 29, Erin Patterson hosted a luncheon for which she cooked a Beef Wellington dish that police believe contained death cap mushrooms in the traditional duxelle coating between the beef fillet and dough wrapper.
Mrs. Patterson was supposed to have invited her estranged husband Simon Patterson, but he declined, and instead she was left in charge of his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson.
The Pattersons, both aged 70, died nearly a week later, Heather Wilkinson died on the same day as her sister Gail, and Pastor Ian Wilkinson is still in hospital awaiting a liver transplant.
Victoria Police have launched a homicide investigation. but is ‘keeping an open mind’.
Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting that Erin Patterson harmed her luncheon guests, only that she is a ‘person of interest’ in the ongoing investigation into the deaths.