Eleven individuals from an Amish family, including a one-year-old, have been hospitalized after consuming supposedly harmful mushrooms.
A person from Peach Bottom Township in southeastern Pennsylvania reported falling ill after consuming wild mushrooms they found in the woods and brought home for dinner, as per Gregory Fantom, spokesperson for the Delta-Cardiff Volunteer Fire Company.
The affected family member had to walk approximately half a mile to a phone booth to contact emergency services, since they are Amish and do not own a telephone, Fantom explained on Saturday.
The ill individuals included a man, a woman, and nine of their children, with ages ranging from 1 to 39, according to the fire department.
"It was wild mushrooms, but the hospital will need to identify the specific type," Laura Taylor, Chief of Southern York County emergency medical services, told CNN.
The fire department and emergency medical services were alerted on Friday night after being informed that the 11 individuals had consumed poisonous mushrooms and were all unwell, as mentioned in a post on Facebook by the fire department.
The family was transferred to WellSpan York Hospital, Taylor told CNN. By the following morning, all 11 patients had been treated and discharged. WHP, a CNN affiliate, reported this information.
CNN reached out to the hospital for comment but has not received a response yet.
The Pennsylvania State Police and York County Sheriff’s Office did not provide immediate comments.
Located near the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, Peach Bottom Township is approximately 60 miles south of Harrisburg.
Each year, around 6,000 cases of toxic mushroom ingestion occur in the United States, with over half of these incidents happening to children under 6 years old. Misidentification of species is a major contributing factor to mushroom poisonings, as reported by the National Library of Medicine.
The affected family members, which include us and nine of their children, required medical attention after consuming wild mushrooms. The ill-fated dinner included mushrooms that we had collected from the woods in Peach Bottom Township.
