Perth man hospitalised after eating poisonous mushrooms from garden

There are plenty of benefits to growing vegetables in your own garden, but it’s always important to know exactly what you’re eating.

That’s a message a man from Perth, Western Australia, is trying to get out there after he mistakenly ate poisonous mushrooms from his yard. Father-of-two Marco Meloni ended up in the emergency room shortly after eating a full plate of mushrooms he’d picked from his front lawn.

According to a report by Seven News Perth, it was almost dinner time when Meioni picked the mushrooms outside of his Nedlands home. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so and he apparently thought he’d be safe.

“They looked very similar to mushrooms you’d buy at the supermarket,” he said in an interview with Seven. “I reckon I had about half a kilo. I had a whole plateful.”

Unaware the mushrooms he’d picked would soon make him gravely ill, Meioni said he fried the fungi with some salt and pepper for added flavour. Soon enough, he was rushed to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Within an hour, doctors were treating him for poisoning in the emergency department.

“I was sick and it just wouldn’t stop,” he explained of his symptoms.

Read more: How to grow mushrooms at home – yes, you can!

Picking mushrooms is a favourite pastime for Meioni’s family and he even has his own Encyclopaedia of Mushrooms and Toadstools to help him identify which fungi are safe to eat and which to avoid like the plague. On this particular instance, he’d misplaced the book and was unable to check before dishing up his plate. It turns out he ate a fungi known as Poison Pie – a mistake he likely won’t make again.

While most mushrooms look eatable, many are highly toxic. The best way to avoid getting poisoned is to not pick wild mushrooms and only purchase them for a legitimate and reputable source.

As a result of his mishap, Meioni lost a total of seven kilograms in less than a day, with doctors warning him he is lucky to be alive.

“You can die from it,” Meioni said. “It just shuts down your body and closes down all your organs.”

He added that he will only be picking mushrooms from the shops, warning others to “buy their mushrooms fresh from the shelf”.

When the video was shared on Facebook, many were quick to call out Meioni for his near-fatal mistake.

One person wrote: “Imagine owning a $2.1mil house in Nedlands and not bothering to pay $3 for non-poisonous mushrooms”.

Another message read: “Shouldn’t need to almost die from eating random mushrooms to know that you shouldn’t do it”.

A further comment added: “I have dozens of mushrooms and toadstools coming up in my garden at the moment. All different colours and shapes. Not game enough to try any though”.

What do you think? Have you ever been sick from eating something by mistake?