Mushrooms
A police investigation is currently underway in Australia, examining the cause of a poisoning that killed three people and left a fourth fighting for his life. The four had eaten a meal prepared by their former daughter and sister-in-law, who has remained well. Her children, who were also present at the meal, ate a different dish to those who became ill and were also unaffected. It is believed the deaths were due to a poisonous mushroom, with speculation it was the death cap variety. Police are currently trying to establish the exact cause of the deaths and the circumstances around them.
This case piqued my interest due to my own near miss around mushrooms. And it wasn’t to do with all the wild mushrooms we gathered and ate on the farm as children, nor the highly poisonous red and white dotted toadstools that grew under the pine trees near our house, that we sometimes took to school to show our classmates, rather, it was an article that I wrote for the newspaper and a photograph that very nearly accompanied it.
We had had a call from one of the custodians of the local park, telling us that people were invading the property at night to gather the magic mushrooms, famed for their hallucinogenic properties. I went and interviewed him and wrote the story to appear in the following day’s paper. He very kindly sent me a photo to accompany the piece I had written. I did a double take. These couldn’t be the magic mushrooms he was talking about. These were the same deadly poisonous toadstools that grew under our pine trees as children. My heart skipped a beat. Had I not been there to recognise that photo and had it gone to print instead, there could have been catastrophic consequences. Although poisonings with this toadstool are rare because of their distinctive colour, if an article appeared in the paper saying they had hallucinogenic qualities, then there was the potential for unsuspecting people to ingest them, believing they were safe to consume. That was one of the biggest drawbacks of print media; once a story was published it was out there and no amount of retractions could guarantee that what was written wasn’t read by an unsuspecting person at a later date as any correction would be in the next edition, rather than the one that was printed.
I still shudder to this day, thankful that that nightmare never happened and what might have been. I was able to say, ‘’this isn’t a magic mushroom’’ although I didn’t know what those looked like. I phoned the custodian and he seemed nonplussed about his error. ‘’Oh, I thought that was the one,’’ he said.
Papers do make mistakes. It is frustrating both for the journalist and the person on the other end of any error, but to make a mistake that could have resulted in a death would have been horrendous. Of course, there are checks in place with a paper before print. In this case it would have been the editor. Would he have known the difference? I am not sure. But either way, the photo was destroyed and did not accompany the article to print. It is much easier these days with Google to check facts, but when a photo is supplied from a client, then one assumes that to be accurate.
As for the woman who cooked the lunch, apparently her ex-husband also became very ill some time ago with an undiagnosed illness, requiring time in ICU. He was also meant to be at the lunch, but cancelled at the last minute. It is certainly suspicious sounding for this woman, who said she loved all the victims dearly, but her guilt or innocence is for the cops to determine and not members of the public or media.