Mother and son almost die from eating 'death cap' mushroom

Maybe they should have gone to the supermarket.

A mother and son in Massachusetts nearly died after they ate a highly toxic mushroom they had foraged from a friend’s backyard. 

Kai Chen, 27, and his mother Kam Look, 63, who live in Amherst, had been scouring for fungi in September when the pair came across a mushroom reminiscent of the kind Look ate when growing up in Malaysia, Fox News reported.

But the variety they plucked turned out to be an Amanita phalloides, also known as a death cap mushroom. Most mushroom deaths worldwide are caused by Amanita phalloides, according to the CDC.

The toxic mushroom left the mother and son with symptoms akin to extreme food poisoning, and they were eventually treated at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.

“For both of us what it felt like was that we were really in imminent danger,” Chen told CBS Boston. 

A new experimental drug had to be flown in from Philadelphia to stabilize the pair. Look ultimately required a liver transplant.  

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