Three California residents were poisoned by deadly mushrooms they bought from a food truck.
The patients bought the vegetables from a van in Salinas, a farming community in central California.
The trio, described as young and healthy, ate amanita phalloides, colloquially known as ‘death caps’ or ‘the silent killer’.
They resemble common edible mushrooms found in supermarkets, including button and cremini mushrooms, but consuming just 30 grams of them is enough to kill.
The poisoning took place on New Year’s Day. It was only the next day that the three people became seriously ill, with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Dr. Erica Locke, an emergency department physician at Salinas Valley Health, said: ‘In that phase (of poisoning) people become seriously dehydrated and can suffer kidney damage.
“After about 24 hours of nausea, vomiting and that cholera-like diarrhea, people start to feel a little bit better, the so-called senescent period, where they start to recover, and that’s exactly what happened to these people.”
Only when their symptoms returned did they go to the hospital, which revealed that their livers were in the early stages of liver damage.
The death cap mushroom (pictured left and right), responsible for 90 percent of mushroom-related deaths, resembles some edible species and can cause serious liver and kidney damage
Doctors are hopeful that two people who remain in treatment will recover and that the third, who ate less of the mushrooms, has already recovered.
Patients told doctors they bought the mushrooms from a produce truck parked in front of a supermarket.
At the same time, Salinas police reported receiving conflicting accounts from the patients, who also reported hiking to Fremont’s Peak, where police “strongly believed” they had collected the mushrooms themselves.
Death caps contain powerful toxins that damage the liver and kidneys.
The toxins block a crucial enzyme that cells need to make proteins, and without producing those proteins, the cells die.
There is usually a period of six to 24 hours during which no symptoms occur, even though the poison is already working in the body.
After that period, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea increase, leading to dehydration.
When the body dehydrates, blood flow to the kidneys and liver decreases, causing damage and possible failure.
Dr. Locke said: ‘If they had come in within the first 24 hours, hopefully we could have avoided some of the liver toxicity.
“They especially need a lot of hydration support, so if we can hydrate them through that and then do some of the things that we know will prevent the toxin from circulating in the body, we can prevent liver damage.”
The patients were transferred to a specialized unit at Stanford Medicine that focuses on liver health and transplantation.
Edible varieties commonly found in recipes resemble death caps. For this reason, police and scientists discourage people from foraging for mushrooms themselves
Salinas police have found no evidence of the truck where the three patients purchased the mushrooms, and it is possible that other people in the area also purchased them.
Still, a police report found that there have been no further cases of illness in Salinas due to mushroom poisoning and concluded that there is no threat to the general public.
Death caps, responsible for about 90 percent of mushroom deaths, are native to Europe but made their way to North America in the 1930s on the roots of imported trees and eventually became an invasive species.
They grow in many parts of the US, including California, Idaho and Texas, as well as British Columbia in Canada.
It can be difficult to spot these unassuming mushrooms. They can grow to six inches tall with a dome-shaped cap, a yellow/green or brownish hue, and an off-white stem. They do not give off any odors or obvious giveaways.
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Scientists generally discourage people from foraging for mushrooms on their own because they are so easily mistaken for edible varieties.
The chance of dying after eating just a minute of the dome hat ranges from 25 to 50 percent. Prompt medical treatment is crucial to prevent permanent damage to the organs.
Because such a small part of the mushroom can be fatal, death caps have been used as an invisible murder weapon since the ancient Romans.
Historical accounts suggest that Roman Emperor Claudius was poisoned by his wife, who reportedly mixed the deadly fungi with Claudius’ favorite Caesar mushrooms, killing him around 54 AD.
Another ruler, Charles VI of Austria, died in 1740 after eating what he did not know were poisonous mushrooms. The French philosopher Voltaire wrote in his memoirs that ‘this plate of mushrooms changed the fate of Europe’.