"Canberra News, Views and Opinion"
The SMH is running with the cause of deathcap warnings from ACT Health.
Three people are seriously ill in a Sydney hospital after eating death cap mushrooms – named for their poison that can trigger liver failure – at a New Year’s Eve party in Canberra.
A 52-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man were flown to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in a critical condition from Canberra’s Calvary Hospital yesterday afternoon, a Calvary spokesman said.
UPDATE:
Two of the victims have now joined the choir invisibile.
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Two of those people are now dead.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-04/two-die-from-death-cap-mushrooms/3757764
Merle said :
Dang! You’re quick!
This goes part way to explaining why people get confused and die.
Left: Immature deathcap mushroom (Very Deadly), Amanita phalloides.
Right Fully-opened Paddy Straw Mushroom (Healthy to eat), Volvariella speciosa
Also, even less mature deathcaps look like volvariella volvacea.
Unless you’ve got a field guide and take a spore print, don’t eat mushrooms you find in public spaces (especially under oak trees).
And yet somehow my foul drum playing german housemate never succumbed to her mushroom gathering ways.
There is no justice.
johnboy said :
To be fair, the consequences of breaking the “Don’t eat oak-tree mushrooms” rule are pretty well known in Europe.
I want to know more about what they were doing with them.
Did they pick and cook them? Buy them from someone else? Trying for magic mushrooms?
Anyone have an inside lane on this?
Endrey said :
I dare say the coronor will……..
Endrey said :
This article suggests it was from eating them with dinner: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/act-cheap-place-to-live/2409363.aspx?page=2
“The trio ate the deadly mushrooms at a New Year’s Eve dinner in Canberra on Saturday night.
A fourth diner, a man aged in his late 30s, was discharged from Canberra Hospital on Tuesday.”
I wonder though if it was in a restaurant or at a person’s home. Surely if it was in a restaurant more people would be affected?
Or perhaps they were all “shrooming” and just lied?
Toadstools or mushrooms?
These are my friends. They come from another country and made the deadly assumption regarding them looking like edible ones from their home country. For this they have paid with their lives in less than 72 hours. This is a tragic accident that will affect dozens of family and friends not to mention 2 kids that are 7 and 11 years old that now don’t have a father. It happened as an innocent dinner with friends and I am bereaved to have lost 2 close friends that loved life to the full. RIP Wo men yong yuan xiang ni xiong di…
I was unaware they were this old – i guess part of me just guessed they were young kids looking to trip balls on NYE – thats really sad.
As one poster has said they were visitors from another country – I hope their families are ok
Shut the restaurant down and sack the Harmonie German Club board of Directors as they are culpable!