Australia - 3 dead after eating wild mushrooms, Leongatha, Victoria, Aug 2023 #2

[JBowie]

Imo the drawings look age appropriate and not weird,

AFAIK, unless I missed it, their ages have not been disclosed.

All I've seen said is 'about high school age'.

 

[JBowie]

I’m on board with the gravy idea.

You may be onto something there:

Beef Wellington with Mushroom Sauce

Gourmet beef wellington served with a red wine mushroom pan sauce. The perfect meal for special occasions and romantic dinners.

www.jessicagavin.com

We really need to hear from the survivor.

 

[Amalgam]

Can you provide links, please?
For context and fact verification.

Sure, check this out : Amatoxin Toxicity Workup: Approach Considerations, Laboratory Studies, Radiography, Ultrasonography, and CT

And particularly “
Leves of amatoxin and other cyclopeptides in
serum or urine are not outinely obtained and
have no clinical utility.”

 

[Amalgam]

We really need to hear from the survivor.

Unfortunately they are highly likely to be in a very muddled and incoherent state at present due to hepatic encephalopathy. Put simply, when our liver is disabled, our brain chemistry goes haywire.

 

[Ellery84]

Would need a comparison with replicated peer reviewed data from Scholar and search under those terms.. would be a very complex search because it would have to be limited to dc mushroom symptomatology, test results and effects on every organ in the body plus vascular...plus co existing conditions plus plus plus...

Also all known methods of ingestion...
producing the exact same biochemistry..
this makes me think of

Did both couples travel home in one or two vehicles following the meal?

Orrrrr we could just ask renowned criminologist
Dr. Xanthé Mallett. She seems to know a bunch of random stuff, and she’s probably met a few poisonous mushrooms in her time…. IMO

 

[Ellery84]

You may be onto something there:

Beef Wellington with Mushroom Sauce

Gourmet beef wellington served with a red wine mushroom pan sauce. The perfect meal for special occasions and romantic dinners.

www.jessicagavin.com

We really need to hear from the survivor.

Maybe not so romantic after all. Also: How could Erin scrape the mushrooms off her kids leftovers if the mushrooms were exclusively within the sauce?

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I hope for the children's sake the exposure of these drawings doesn't cause them issues and affect their privacy. This case really has nothing to do with them. I hope the ghoulish innuendos and speculation over the wall graffitti or whatever people want to call it dies down. I don't think it's that odd for kids to play and draw and imagine what dead is - through imaginative play - or drawings - explore what dead means. They watch tv, they wonder what dead is. It is like bang bang with guns, bank robbers, cowboys and Indians. Imo the drawings look age appropriate and not weird, apart from the fact they are on a wall. Moo

I wholly agree with this and *ahem* giving my age away a bit here but when I was in my early teens Michael Jackson's Thriller had just been released at the same time we were in a new age of music video technology. So that song and the video were huge amongst my (very white and British) peer group and by connection, all the associated ghoulishness was very fashionable for a while. One simply cannot know what the influence or reference has been.

 

[JBowie]

Maybe not so romantic after all. Also: How could Erin scrape the mushrooms off her kids leftovers if the mushrooms were exclusively within the sauce?

In the recipe linked to, there are mushrooms baked into the dish, (see "The mushroom filling") as well as being in the sauce.

 

[CityKid]

It actually might be useful to allow EP to visit/allow her to give something to the ill victim. If she was caught with poisoned chocolates or similar, it would really simplify matters!

I would hope she is kept far away from her victim and not be allowed to even get close enough to kill her surviving witness. MOO

 

[Ellery84]

You may be onto something there:

Beef Wellington with Mushroom Sauce

Gourmet beef wellington served with a red wine mushroom pan sauce. The perfect meal for special occasions and romantic dinners.

www.jessicagavin.com

We really need to hear from the survivor.

Check this out, JBowie:

One of the three lunch guests who died after eating a poison mushroom beef wellington had a final conversation with a paramedics - details of which have been passed on to the police, a report claims.



Poison mushroom lunch guest had final conversation with paramedic

 

[kittythehare]

Sure, check this out : Amatoxin Toxicity Workup: Approach Considerations, Laboratory Studies, Radiography, Ultrasonography, and CT

And particularly “
Leves of amatoxin and other cyclopeptides in
serum or urine are not outinely obtained and
have no clinical utility.”

It does not explain why this toxin was assumed to be the infective organism though which is what I asked for.

I found it.

Diagnosis​

The diagnosis is based on an in-depth interview of the patient, with particular consideration paid to the time of consumption and the amount of mushrooms ingested, and a urine test to determine the presence of amanitin. Amatoxins are rapidly absorbed in the digestive system. They may be present in the blood for up to 36 h and in the urine for a couple of days. If possible, the leftovers of the mushroom meal consumed, or the vomitus of a sick person should be preserved for mycological examination. However, such analyses may be difficult to perform, especially when only vomitus is available, because mushrooms will be in a changed form. Therefore, genetic testing-based methods are becoming increasingly popular to identify the species [17]. In fatal cases, autopsies usually reveal signs of jaundice, cerebral oedema, subserosal petechiae, pulmonary congestion, liver steatosis, renal congestion with ecchymosis, and hemorrhages in the cortical part.

Medical error in treatment of Amanita phalloides poisoning in pre-hospital care - Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine

Background Geopolitical and climate changes form the background of the current migration crisis. It has many faces. One of them are the tragic cases of poisoning of refugees due to eating wild forest mushrooms for socioeconomic reasons in the Western and Northern European countries. The most...

sjtrem.biomedcentral.com

 

[Ellery84]

In the recipe linked to, there are mushrooms baked into the dish, (see "The mushroom filling") as well as being in the sauce.

Oh goodness. Mushrooms everywhere.

 

[Ellery84]

I would hope she is kept far away from her victim and not be allowed to even get close enough to kill her surviving witness. MOO

Alleged victim, but yes. I hope they are under police guard in hospital for their own safety.

All MOO.

 

[kittythehare]

I guess you can’t make sense out of nonsense. A beef wellington is normally made from a piece of fillet steak (very expensive) and this was supposedly made to feed 7 people …. Why on earth would you add mushrooms knowing both children did not like them when you may have spent a lot of money on this particular cut. And totally agree the highly poisonous mushrooms would have leached into the meat. So the children have no symptoms (the smallest amount would affect a child). Also weird that ER is the only one who picked up a killer pack of dried mushrooms from a Mount Waverley shop whilst no other reports have been made.

mushrooms is part of the recipe for Beef Wellington.

 

[Ellery84]

*Mic drop guys*

Friends of the Patterson family have also told Daily Mail Australia she was an experienced mushroom forager and the family would pick fungi yearly.

BBM

The contradictions in the mushroom poisoning case

 

[kittythehare]

There is a test.
Will follow through on whether it is commonly used

New Test Identifies Poisonous Mushrooms : USDA ARS

 

[kittythehare]

more info on test

FAQ – AMATOXtest – a rapid, sensitive and simple test for amanitin

How sensitive is the AMATOXtest? The AMATOXtest can detect as little as 10 nanograms (0.00000001 grams) of alpha-amanitin per milliliter in a solution such as an extract of mushroom tissue or urine from an intoxicated human or animal. That’s sensitive enough to detect the toxin in a drop of water that’s dripped onto a Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) or Destroying Angel (Amanita ocreata, Amanita bisporigera, Amanita virosa, and others) mushroom and collected into the test port. Similarly, the urine from a human or animal that’s eaten the mushroom as much as three days earlier and as soon as three hours after ingestion still has enough toxin to give a positive test

this is on the mushroom itself

 

[Amalgam]

There is a test.
Will follow through on whether it is commonly used

New Test Identifies Poisonous Mushrooms : USDA ARS

That test, whilst sensitive and accurate in detecting amatins is not FDA approved yet and not used for diagnostic purposes at this stage.

The FAQ put out by the manufacturer states as much and makes interesting and potentially relevant reading : FAQ – AMATOXtest – a rapid, sensitive and simple test for amanitin

“
Is AMATOXtest a diagnostic test for amatoxin mushroom poisoning? The diagnosis of amatoxin poisoning in humans is based on a clinical triad that includes a history of foraged mushroom ingestion, vomiting and diarrhea beginning at least 6 and up to 24 hours later, and the subsequent development of liver injury as observed by climbing serum transaminase (liver enzyme) values. The diagnosis is more difficult in dogs as mushroom ingestion is often not observed and dogs tend to be poor historians.

AMATOXtest may detect amatoxin in urine samples up to 3 days after an ingestion. Enough amatoxin is present in urine samples within 120 minutes after ingestion to be detected, and therefore a positive AMATOXtest result is possible hours before any of the symptoms of amatoxin poisoning develop.

A positive result confirms the presence of amatoxin in a biological sample but does not diagnose amatoxin poisoning.”
Edit : I see you found the same document.

 

[kittythehare]

That test, whilst sensitive and accurate in detecting amatins is not FDA approved yet and not used for diagnostic purposes at this stage.

The FAQ put out by the manufacturer states as much and makes interesting and potentially relevant reading : FAQ – AMATOXtest – a rapid, sensitive and simple test for amanitin

“
Is AMATOXtest a diagnostic test for amatoxin mushroom poisoning? The diagnosis of amatoxin poisoning in humans is based on a clinical triad that includes a history of foraged mushroom ingestion, vomiting and diarrhea beginning at least 6 and up to 24 hours later, and the subsequent development of liver injury as observed by climbing serum transaminase (liver enzyme) values. The diagnosis is more difficult in dogs as mushroom ingestion is often not observed and dogs tend to be poor historians.

AMATOXtest may detect amatoxin in urine samples up to 3 days after an ingestion. Enough amatoxin is present in urine samples within 120 minutes after ingestion to be detected, and therefore a positive AMATOXtest result is possible hours before any of the symptoms of amatoxin poisoning develop.

A positive result confirms the presence of amatoxin in a biological sample but does not diagnose amatoxin poisoning.”
Edit : I see you found the same document.

I did cos the original link I posted was dated 2020 and i wasn't sure how it had progressed.

There may be more, I got distracted, might be worth another hunt, not necessarily same brand name/

 

[Salah11]

She said she was at the hospital discussing the food dehydrator with her two kids when her ex-husband Simon asked: 'Is that what you used to poison them?'

Erin said the accusation made her panic and she disposed of the device, fearing she may lose custody of the couple's children

This still makes no sense as an innocent person wouldn’t need to panic would they?!