A man has revealed how he narrowly survived after eating his wife’s spaghetti bolognese, which was laced with deadly mushrooms.
Simon Claringbold was a fit and healthy 39-year-old who was running marathons when he tucked himself into the saucer, but just 18 hours later he fell violently ill and was eventually rushed to hospital.
The mushrooms he picked in his backyard in Canberra earlier that day, thinking they were field mushrooms, were actually death caps — the same species thought to have been eaten in recent days at the Leongatha tragedy in Victoria’s Gippsland region.
Erin Patterson, 48, had invited her former in-laws — Gail and Don Patterson, and Gail’s sister and her husband, Heather and Ian Wilkinson — to a beef wellington luncheon at her home.
Now three of her four guests are dead from suspected mushroom poisoning as Mr. Wilkinson fights for his life in the hospital.
Mr Claringbold was gardening in his backyard in Canberra when he saw the deadly hat (above), which he mistook for common mushrooms
Mr Claringbold revealed that the only reason he survived the traumatic ordeal and the others didn’t was sheer luck. Doctors told him at the time that some mushrooms are more deadly than others because they contain different levels of toxins.
“Their toxin levels won’t be consistent; it’s not like taking a pill out of a bottle,” said Mr. Claringbold.
“Sometimes some have more poison than others and it was just a chance you didn’t get enough to conquer.”
Mr. Claringbold fell ill the day after eating his wife’s bolognese and went to his GP after severe vomiting and diarrhoea.
“He (the doctor) took one look at me and raced me to Canberra Hospital. And my wife gave me some of the mushroom in a paper bag and I took that too,” he told the ABCs 7:30.
“The liver specialist there looked at the mushrooms and basically said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a skull mushroom.’
“I didn’t even know skull mushrooms existed.”
Mr Claringbold was airlifted to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and taken to the acute liver unit.
He soon began hallucinating and passing out as the effects of the toxins took over.
“I was preparing for the end, I really thought it was the end. The lights started to go out,’ he said.
Miraculously, Mr. Claringbold eventually recovered from the poisoning and was released from hospital 11 days later.
He was flown to Royal Prince Alfred in Sydney and hospitalized for 11 days. During his stay in the hospital, he started hallucinating and blacked out due to the effects of the toxins
Mr Claringbold’s reminder of his accidental fatal mushroom mushroom poisoning comes as lawyers acting for deadly mushroom chef Erin have been forced to camp outside her home to issue legal instructions to her after she went missing on Thursday.
Ms Patterson told a waiting media pack just before 10am that she was on her way to visit her lawyers in Melbourne.
But a representative from that law firm waited outside her home in Leongatha around 5 p.m. to deliver a letter from the office.
The man told Daily Mail Australia that this was the only way Ms Patterson could be contacted after homicide detectives seized her phone and computer equipment.
It comes when police were seen doing a drive-by at Mrs. Patterson’s house just before sunset.
Clearly, attorneys acting for Ms. Patterson are concerned for her well-being amid the media frenzy beyond her rural property.
The legal representative declined to answer questions about the contents of the letter or whether charges against Ms. Patterson were imminent.
Erin and her two children did not get sick from lunch, as they reportedly ate a separate meal.
Daily Mail Australia does not suggest that Erin is in any way responsible for the deaths and she has denied any wrongdoing.
Sources have told Daily Mail Australia that Erin invited her ex-husband Simon to their former family home for lunch as part of a church mediation.
The revelation that Erin wanted to get back together with her estranged husband, who backed out of lunch at the last minute, comes amid reports that the deadly dish she served was a beef wellington pie.
A source close to Simon, who remains in hiding days after the tragedy, said his partner had no interest in getting back together with the mother of his two children.
Erin Patterson (pictured), who is at the center of the suspected poisoning of four people, has denied any allegation
Ian Wilkinson and Heather Wilkinson (both pictured) became seriously ill after eating wild mushrooms. Mrs Wilkinson died on Friday while her husband is in critical condition in hospital
Erin hosted a lunch with her former in-laws, Gail and Don, on July 29, along with Gail’s sister, Heather, and her husband Ian at her home in Leongatha (pictured, the home in Leongatha)
Gail and Don Patterson died after eating the mushrooms. Erin was previously married to their son, Simon
“They went to her house for a mediation to talk to the family. Simon was going to have lunch there, but withdrew at the last minute, otherwise he would also be in that deathbed,” the friend said on Thursday.
The friend claimed that Ms. Patterson was desperate to get back together with her estranged husband.
“She wanted to go back with Simon and the family didn’t want Simon to come back with her,” he said.
“They didn’t really think she was good enough for him in their eyes.
‘This was not just a lunch, it was an intervention with the pastor as a mediator. That’s why this lunch happened.’
Meanwhile, police returned to a dump in Koonwarra on Wednesday to request CCTV footage after a dehydrator was found discarded at the site.
It was previously revealed that detectives are investigating whether a food dehydrator had been used to prepare the meal and then thrown away a day after lunch.
Police are believed to be carrying out a forensic investigation into the device.
Erin didn’t answer questions about where the mushrooms came from, who she picked, or what kind of meal she made for her four guests (pictured, mushroom picked)