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At Risk Survivor: Mushroom Man

The warning read, "Ingestion of tewnty grams is potentially lethal" but a visitor to the mycological conference in the village of Badajoz disagreed with the official assessment of Amanita Phalloides.

Forty-five-year old Jesus knew mushrooms. He had spent the past few days collecting and exhibiting mushrooms. He began arguing with conference attendees, and to prove his point he picked up the display specimen and began chewing on half of it. Aghast onlookers begged him to spit it out but he calmly finished chewing, swallowed, and went on to consume the remaining half of the poisonous basidiomycete fugus.

Jesus, clearly under the influence of alcohol, insisted that the next few hours would prove who was right and who was wrong. Indeed it did. An ambulance was summoned, and despite heated opposition, a friend finally convinced the amateur mycologist to get into the ambulance.

It was lucky that his firend was persuasive. Once in the hospital Jesus started to show signs of poisoning: bloating, jaundice, and continuous vomiting. He spent two days in the intensive care unit.

Although the man was aware that his liver showed extremely high levels of transaminase, an enzyme produced when the liver has to process toxic substances, he was still convinced that the mushroom is harmless.

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