VANCOUVER — A critical care doctor is warning British Columbians about a "sinister" deadly mushroom and the importance of health-care providers recognizing signs of poisoning from a variety that is spreading across the Pacific coast of North America.
Death Cap mushroom/Shutterstock
Dr. Omar Ahmad, head of critical care and emergency medicine for Island Health, says the so-called death cap mushroom can easily be mistaken for edible varieties and is responsible for 90 per cent of the world's mushroom-related fatalities.
Three people in B.C. have died after eating the mushroom, including a young child who consumed one foraged from a residential street in Victoria in 2016.
People who eat death caps can experience abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea within six to 12 hours, but a false recovery phase follows up to three days later and can prevent people from seeking medical help.
However, Ahmad says liver damage progresses in the background before convulsions can occur, leading to coma and death from the mushroom, which also grows in Atlantic Canada.
He says one mushroom cap is enough to kill an adult and the health authority has been educating doctors on what to look for in patients who may think they merely had the flu after their condition begins improving but is actually deteriorating.
