Leftovers from a meal from a restaurant nearly killed a 19-year-old American college student. Several of the teen’s organs failed due to food poisoning. Doctors eventually had to amputate both his legs and all of his fingers, according to a report in the scientific journal The New England Journal of Medicine.
The 19-year-old Massachusetts student had eaten rice, chicken and lo mein, leftovers from a Chinese restaurant. Not long after, he developed a stomach ache and his skin began to turn purplish. He went into shock, developed a rash on his skin and several organs fell out. The teen was hospitalized. His condition deteriorated rapidly. His breathing was irregular and he had high blood pressure. He also had to vomit. His health before that was generally good, although he smoked and drank regularly.
The diagnosis: purpura fulminans, an acute bacterial infection that occurs in severe blood poisoning. It is a rare complication associated with septic shock. The disease can be fatal in a matter of hours.
In the hospital, the patient developed necrosis, the death of tissue and cells. The doctors had no choice but to amputate the student’s legs and fingers. Furthermore, a pacemaker had to control his heart rhythm disturbances for 13 days.
There have been warnings for some time about the possible dangers of leftover food that is poorly stored. Rice and pasta, for example, contain the bacteria ‘bacillus cereus’, which can cause food poisoning if the food is left out of the refrigerator for too long and heated. In 2008, a teenager died in his sleep after eating a leftover pasta that had not been kept in the refrigerator.
Doctors found that the Massachusetts student had received a first dose of the meningococcal vaccine, but never the recommended booster. His roommate had also eaten the leftovers and vomited, but had no other life-threatening symptoms.
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