Following the tragic death of a restaurant-goer, a medical warning has been shared to raised awareness over the potential risks of sushi.
In April 2023, Donna Ventura went for lunch with husband Jon and some friends at Dave’s Sushi in Montana. The meal left her fighting for her life.
Ventura went into complete kidney and liver failure following the meal at Dave’s Sushi where she ordered the ‘special roll’. She was in hospital for 13 days and became unable to breathe without a ventilator before she sadly passed away.
Her husband, Jon, told KBZK that toxins from uncooked morel mushrooms had attacked her kidneys and liver along with damaging her oesophagus and trachea.
Donna wasn’t alone in falling ill, with a total of 51 diners reportedly becoming ill after eating the special roll consisting of salmon and morel mushrooms. Another afflicted diner also passed away.
Morels are a very popular edible mushroom that are perfectly safe when cooked.
Investigators found that the 51 affected diners had all eaten uncooked morel mushrooms before suffering their poisonous effects.
Dave’s Sushi told MTN News that it had been ‘fully transparent’ with investigators and that is has since 'implemented Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) extensively in our kitchen'.
A Dave’s Sushi spokesperson said: "Our entire kitchen management team is ServSafe Manager certified. We have also implemented extensive food and environmental safety measures, testing, and monitoring.
“We hope that other retailers and restaurants that plan on continuing to distribute and prepare morel mushrooms educate their clients and consumers that these mushrooms are not fully understood.
"We understand from the case control study performed that the morel mushrooms served at Dave’s being undercooked contributed to a greater likelihood of people becoming ill from their consumption.
"There are numerous reports of people becoming ill, in some cases fatally, from eating cooked morel mushrooms. We are grateful that The CDC and FDA have both released their first and only publicized guidelines on morel mushrooms.
"We hope that this information is distributed with morel mushrooms in hopes that a tragedy such as this is prevented from happening again. We feel awful about this outbreak, especially for the individuals and families affected from consuming the morel mushrooms at Dave’s Sushi."
Sushi itself has been the subject of medical warnings, too, although these typically focus on potential parasites.
The British Medical Journal Case Reports featured an incident in Portugal where a 32-year-old man was found with parasitic larvae in his gut lining after reporting stomach pain, vomiting, and a fever.
Doctors suspected he may have anisakiasis, a parasitic infection from eating raw fish.
The worms in affected sushi can burrow into the intestinal lining, often leading to painful stomach aches, nausea and vomiting. Thankfully, the immune system should be able to kill them off in time.
However, in severe cases a doctor may need to remove the parasites via surgery or endoscopy.
The aforementioned 32-year-old underwent an endoscopy to have larvae removed, following which his ‘symptoms resolved immediately’.
In order to kill anisakiasis without cooking the fish, it needs to be frozen at -20C or below for 24 hours.
Featured Image Credit: Alexander Spatari/Getty Images
Rachael Davis