3 Illegal Aliens Die 6 Days After Eating Poison Mushrooms

Three Mexican nationals died Saturday and one remained in “very critical” condition after eating a highly poisonous variety of wild mushrooms that they apparently picked in a field in Escondido and fried for dinner last Sunday.

Based on the victim’s description of the mushrooms and the four men’s symptoms, doctors at the San Diego Regional Poison Center determined that the mushrooms were an Amanita phalloides -type of mushroom, which is sometimes called the “death cap,” said Sven Normann, a toxicologist at the poison center.

“A single mushroom can be lethal to an adult and there is at least one documented case of a child dying after eating one-third of a cap,” Normann said of the mushroom that is usually a pale yellow or greenish to an olive brown in color and about four to eight inches tall.

The first to die from the effects of the poison were Jose Ortiz, 38, and Luis DeJesus, 27, who died early Saturday at Mercy Hospital, said Norman Greene, the hospital spokesman. Anastacio Rodriguez, 43, died at UC San Diego Medical Center at 2:50 p.m. Saturday.

Jorge Favela, 31, was in a coma and on kidney dialysis and a respirator Saturday evening at Mercy and was not expected to live through the night, Greene said.

“We know they are Mexican nationals and we know that they are here illegally but we don’t know where they belong--where they are from in Mexico or who their families are,” Greene said.

The toxins in that type of mushroom attack the kidney and liver and then the central nervous system, Normann said. Typically, he said, victims will experience vomiting, diarrhea and violent abdominal cramping within 24 hours after eating the poisonous mushroom.

But after vomiting, victims usually feel fine for about 48 hours while the toxins are permeating the system, Normann said. The three men were able to make their way from the Escondido field to a downtown San Diego mission on Wednesday, where Rodriguez collapsed first and was taken by Hartson’s Ambulance to San Diego Physician’s and Surgeon’s Hospital and later transferred to UCSD Medical Center.

The other three men got sick a short while later Wednesday and were taken to Mercy.

By the time the men were admitted to the hospitals they were very ill. Although doctors tried a variety of anti-toxins to combat the poison, the men lapsed into comas and were already suffering from kidney and liver failure, said Greene at Mercy and Barbara Preece, the nursing supervisor at UCSD.

Doctors said they thought none of the men ate more than five mushrooms, Greene said. Favela, the only surviving victim, was believed to have eaten the fewest.

This is at the second reported incident of poisoning from wild mushrooms in San Diego County within three years. Five Laotian refugees suffered liver damage after eating poisonous Amanita brunescens -type of wild mushroom, which look similar to an edible variety found in their native country.

The poison center received 301 calls regarding mushrooms in 1983, but no calls were about mushrooms as toxic as the “death cap,” Normann said. “Most of the calls we receive are about children eating the type of mushroom that crops up in your backyard after it rains--and that type isn’t lethal,” he said.

“But the bottom line is don’t eat any type of wild mushroom even if you think it’s safe. The risk is too great,” Normann said.