Two Men Ate Poisonous Mushrooms and Lived to Talk About the Experience

There are good mushrooms and there are poisonous mushrooms. The mushrooms that pop up all over your lawn after a rainstorm are not the good mushrooms. Many people are under the impression that those mushrooms look so good why not eat them. Well, two men have found out why you don't eat them.

Remember this name, Frank Constantinopla, and think of it when you want to eat one of your lawn mushrooms. Frank was in amazement when he saw how many mushrooms were growing on the lawn of his Virginia home. His first thought was 'food' and he proceeded to harvest a bunch of the deadly 'shrooms'. He even played the good husband by using them in a stir-fry noodle dish he cooked up for himself and his wife.

Accolades were not in abundance after the meal because Frank, 49, and his wife became very ill with stomach cramps, vomiting and, well you get the picture. After two days of that they Frank went to a local emergency room. They didn't keep him; they sent him to Georgetown University Hospital. They thought that Frank needed a liver transplant because of eating those poisonous mushrooms.

Those mushrooms have a name: Amanita phalloides, a toadstool commonly known as the Death Cap. Interesting name and it almost came true. Since there is no government approved treatment for mushroom poisoning, Frank could have died. The docs were able to get approval to use an experimental drug consisting of milk thistle, which is a flowering plant used in holistic remedies.

Thank goodness for milk thistle, it worked and Frank is a very lucky man. His wife recovered also but she did not need the milk thistle. The story doesn't end there.

About a week later 82-year-old Walter Lantz in Maryland snacked on some mushrooms and he also wound up at Georgetown University Hospital. He received the same treatment that Frank got but he had digested Amanita bisporigera, also called Destroying Angel, another scary name for a mushroom.

Frank and Walter are lucky. As many as one-third of the people who eat poisonous mushrooms die. Let the lesson that these men learned the hard way lead you down an easier and different path. Do not east wild mushrooms of any kind. No matter how nice they look growing in abundance on your front lawn, don't eat them! Buy mushroom at the store and stay safe! Poisonous mushrooms can kill you, or at least make you very ill, just ask Frank and Walter.

Source:

The Washington Post