11 Amish family members, including 1-year-old, hospitalized after eating ‘poisonous mushrooms’

Eleven members of an Amish family – including a 1-year-old child – were hospitalized Friday evening in Pennsylvania after ingesting “toxic wild mushrooms,” local authorities said.

A family member from Peach Bottom Township in southeastern Pennsylvania told authorities he became ill after eating wild mushrooms that one of them “found in the woods. .. and taken home for dinner,” said Gregory Fantom, spokesman for the Delta-Cardiff Volunteer Fire Company. .

The family member who reported the illnesses walked about a half-mile to a pay phone to call 911 because the family is Amish and does not have a phone, Fantom said Saturday.

The 11 were a man, a woman and nine of their children, Fantom said. They ranged in age from 1 to 39, firefighters said.

“It was wild mushrooms, but the hospital would have to confirm the type,” Laura Taylor, chief of Southern York County Emergency Medical Services, told CNN.

Firefighters and EMS units went to the family’s home Friday evening after learning that all 11 people had “ingested toxic mushrooms and were all sick,” the fire department said in a Facebook post.

The family was taken to WellSpan York Hospital, Taylor told CNN. All 11 patients were treated and released overnight, CNN affiliate WHP reported.

CNN reached out for comment from the hospital but did not receive a response.

The Pennsylvania State Police and the York County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond for comment.

Peach Bottom Township is near the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, approximately 60 miles south of Harrisburg.

About 6,000 poisonous mushroom ingestions occur each year in the United States, more than half of them among children younger than 6, according to the National Library of Medicine, which said species misidentification is the cause. one of the main causes of mushroom poisoning.

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