() – Eleven members of an Amish family, including a 1-year-old baby, were hospitalized in Pennsylvania on Friday night after eating “toxic” wild mushrooms, local authorities said.
A family member in Peach Bottom Township in southeastern Pennsylvania told authorities they became ill after eating wild mushrooms that one of them “found in the woods… and brought home for dinner,” according to Gregory Fantom, spokesman for the Delta-Cardiff Volunteer Fire Company.
The family member who reported the illnesses walked approximately 0.8 kilometers to a phone booth to call 911, since 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. Their ages ranged from 1 to 39 years old, according to the fire department.
“They were wild mushrooms, but the hospital would have to confirm the type,” Southern York County EMS Chief Laura Taylor told .
Fire department and EMS units responded to the family Friday night after being informed that the 11 had “eaten toxic mushrooms and were all sick,” the fire department said in a statement.post on Facebook.
The family was taken to WellSpan York Hospital, Taylor told . All 11 patients were treated and released overnight, the affiliate reported WHP.
has sought comment from the hospital but has not received a response.
Pennsylvania State Police and the York County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond for comment.
Peach Bottom Township is near the Pennsylvania-Maryland state line, about 60 miles south of Harrisburg.
According to the National Library of Medicine, About 6,000 toxic mushroom ingestions occur each year in the United States, more than half in children under 6 years of age, and species misidentification is one of the causes. main reasons of mushroom poisoning.
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