A MAN almost died after his wife laced his dinner with the same death cap mushrooms that recently killed three in Australia.
Simon Claringbold, 64, from Canberra, became violently ill after eating the deadly fungi he picked from his garden.
AU NewsSimon Claringbold almost died after eating a death cap mushroom[/caption]
FacebookHe picked the fungi from his garden thinking it was a field mushroom[/caption]
The marathon-running fitness fan tucked into his wife’s homemade spaghetti bolognese after she used his pickings – but just 18 hours later he was rushed to hospital.
He had plucked the mushrooms thinking that they were field mushrooms but they actually turned out to be death caps.
Simon revealed that the only reason he managed to survive the nightmare ordeal aged in 1998 is plain luck.
Doctors explained to 39-year-old at the time that some death cap mushrooms are more deadly than others because they contain varying levels of toxins.
“Their toxin levels aren’t going to be consistent; it’s not like taking a pill out of a bottle,” Simon said.
“Sometimes some will have more toxin than others and it was just a chance that you didn’t ingest enough to overcome.”
The bloke suffered from intense vomiting and diarrhoea before airlifted to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.
A liver expert then revealed that he had consumed a death cap mushroom as he quickly began hallucinating and blacking out as the effects of the toxins took over.
“I didn’t even know that death cap mushrooms existed,” he said at the time.
“I was preparing for the end, I really thought it was the end. The lights were starting to go out,” he said.
Simon eventually recovered from the death cap mushroom poisoning and was discharged from the hospital 11 days later.
These were the same variety of fungi thought to have been eaten in the Leongatha, Australia, tragedy in the past few days.
Erin Patterson, 48, invited Gail and Don Patterson, her former in-laws, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson and her husband Ian to her home for a beef wellington lunch.
After eating the meal on July 29, the guests became violently ill and Gail and Don, both 70, and Heather, 66, later died.
Cops said their symptoms were consistent with having eaten death cap mushrooms.
Ian, a pastor, remains in hospital in a critical condition, awaiting a liver transplant.
Homicide detectives confirmed Erin is a suspect in the case as the mum-of-two cooked the meal at her home but did not get sick.
Now lawyers acting for Erin have been forced to camp outside her home to hand deliver legal instructions after she went missing on Thursday.
She had told reporters just before 10am she was leaving to speak to lawyers in Melbourne.
But a representative of the law firm arrived at her property at 5pm to hand deliver a letter, Daily Mail Australia reports.
The man said it was the only way Erin could be reached after cops confiscated her phone and computer – raising questions about her whereabouts.
It’s understood Erin did not return to her home on Thursday night.
Erin has denied any wrongdoing and cops have cautioned that the incident could be “very innocent”.
But officers seized a number of items – including a food dehydrator from a tip, believed to have been used to prepare the mushrooms.
Investigators are still unsure whether she also ate the meal – but cops confirmed a different lunch was served to her two children.