It may be mushroom season, but take heed if you’re planning to forage your own. The latest tale of accidental poisoning comes out of Connecticut, where a woman’s stir-fry of backyard mushrooms sent her family of four to the hospital last week, nearly causing liver failure for her older daughter. Noor Shah picked the innocuous-looking white fungi (later discovered to be the highly poisonous Destroying Angel strain) in her backyard, and fried them up with onions, garlic, and chili peppers, a dish everyone agreed was “tasty” — until the stomach pains and vomiting started.
All four Shahs wound up in the hospital the next day, where the parents and younger daughter quickly responded to charcoal and drug treatment; their 24-year-old daughter had a harder time but is expected to make a full recovery thanks to an experimental drug. Just another example of why it’s better to leave this whole mushroom-hunting business to the pros — although sometimes even that can end badly.
Backyard Mushrooms Nearly Deadly For Family [CTNow via Gawker]
