Eleven members of an Amish family – including a one-year-old – were hospitalised in Pennsylvania Friday night after ingesting wild, “toxic mushrooms,” local authorities said.
A member of the family in south-eastern Pennsylvania’s Peach Bottom Township told authorities they became sick after eating wild mushrooms that one of them “found in the woods … and brought home for dinner,” Gregory Fantom, spokesperson for the Delta-Cardiff Volunteer Fire Company, said.
The family member who reported the illnesses walked about 800 metres to a telephone booth to call 911, as the family is Amish and does not have a telephone, Fantom said Saturday.
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The 11 were a man, a woman and nine of their children, Fantom said. They ranged in age from 1 to 39, the fire department said.
“It was wild mushrooms, but the hospital would have to confirm the type,” Southern York County emergency medical services Chief Laura Taylor told CNN.
The fire department and EMS units went to the family Friday night after being told the 11 had “ingested toxic mushrooms and were all ill,” the fire department said in a post on Facebook.
The family was transported to WellSpan York Hospital, Taylor told CNN. All 11 patients were treated and released overnight, CNN affiliate WHP reported.
CNN has sought comment from the hospital but has not heard back.
The Pennsylvania State Police and York County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond for comment.
About 6,000 toxic mushroom ingestions happen each year in the United States, more than half in children under 6 years old, according to the US National Library of Medicine, which said misidentification of species is among the top reasons for mushroom poisonings.
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