Pennsylvania

11 people hospitalized after eating toxic mushrooms in Pennsylvania

Among the 11 people were an Amish family that included a man, a woman, and nine kids.

File.
Floccularia albolanaripes, a species of fungus in the family Agaricaceae grow in a wood located in SOuth of Edmonton, on September 14, 2023, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

File.
Floccularia albolanaripes, a species of fungus in the family Agaricaceae grow in a wood located in SOuth of Edmonton, on September 14, 2023, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Eleven people were transported to the hospital Friday after accidentally ingesting toxic mushrooms in York County, Pennsylvania, according to NBC affiliate WGAL.

Among the 11 people were an Amish family that included a man, a woman, and nine kids. The family told emergency crews they picked and ate wild mushrooms, WGAL reported.

The station said they were then taken to a local hospital, where they were treated and released.

Eating mushrooms foraged outdoors should almost never be done except by trained experts known as mycologists, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Most of the known mushroom poisonings and deaths in the United States involve foraging of Amanita phalloides mushrooms, known as "death caps," in the wild, the CDC said in a report on the toxic fungi, NBC News reported.

Eating these mushrooms can cause death as well as abdominal discomfort, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, and liver damage, the CDC said.

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