A Kansas woman is suing a San Diego-based produce distributor after she was hospitalized with Salmonella poisoning linked to tainted cucumbers.
Monica Rios of Sedgwick County said she bought a Fat Boy brand cucumber in August at a Wal-Mart store, washed it thoroughly and ate it in a salad. Within a couple of days, she was hospitalized with abdominal cramping and pain.
“I would call my sister, like, every day, just to ask her, ‘Am I gonna die?’ Because the pain wouldn’t go away,” Rios said in a telephone interview.
More than 670 people in 34 states have been sickened in the latest Salmonella outbreak, including two in Kansas. The victims range in age from just 8 months to the elderly, and as of Sept. 29 three people had died. The case count could still go higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC estimates that Salmonella causes 1.2 million illnesses annually in the United States and 450 deaths. People are typically sick for four to seven days, and most recover without treatment. Symptoms include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps.
Rios said doctors tried several medicines in an attempt to control her pain. The intestinal symptoms were soon followed by intense headaches, and she became too weak to walk to the bathroom without assistance.
Rios was hospitalized at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita for nearly a week. When she went home in mid-August, she said she was prescribed 10 medicines. Rios described her recovery as slow and said she’s only now getting back to full strength.
Rios is represented by Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer who specializes in food safety issues. Marler said Rios tested positive for the same strain of Salmonella found in cucumbers recalled by Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce.
How the cucumbers became contaminated remains under investigation, but Marler said he suspects the water used to wash them contained Salmonella.
“When you have something that’s this large of a contamination event, it usually has to do with water contamination,” Marler said in a phone interview. “The idea is to catch the Salmonella before it leaves the manufacturing plant. With current regulations, high levels of bacteria can slip through the cracks, and it results in hundreds of really sick people. We can prevent it, for the most part, but legislation needs to change for that to happen.”
The Rios suit is the 12th Marler has filed against Andrew & Williamson, according to a release from his law firm, Marler Clark. Rios said she has incurred medical expenses of more than $52,000, but that’s not the main reason she filed suit.
“I feel like these companies need to make sure what they’re doing, so these people don’t get sick,” she said. “I didn’t think I was going to live, and anybody could die from this.”
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
