Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jul 2001
Source: The Post and Courier (SC)
Copyright: 2001 Evening Post Publishing Co.
Contact:   http://www.charleston.net/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567
Author: Lynne Langley

DEADLY MUSHROOMS NEARLY KILL TEEN

Teen-ager Brittany Frye and her friends were looking for a free high when 
they picked and ate what they thought were "magic mushrooms" near her 
Sumter home. The teens mistakenly gathered destroying angels, poisonous 
fungi that quickly destroyed Brittany's liver and would have killed her. It 
took the transplant of half her mother's liver and an estimated $350,000 in 
medical treatment to save the life of the 17-year-old, who had planned to 
take college entrance tests this week. Never before has a liver from a 
living donor been used to treat someone suffering from mushroom poisoning, 
said her transplant surgeon, Kenneth Chavin. "We had no choice.

Brittany would have been dead in 24 hours," Chavin said. Her liver was 
gone, her brain swelling, her kidneys and pancreas and spleen at risk. 
Brittany had experimented with wild mushrooms in the past. The euphoria 
lasted about eight hours, she said Wednesday at the Medical University of 
South Carolina. Never again, she said, her voice weak from her Saturday 
surgery. "Don't eat mushrooms.

You can't know which ones are going to kill you," she said. "You could die 
very easily." Her 16-year-old brother Andrew Frye said he's been around 
friends who used wild mushrooms and then behaved as if they were drunk.

Mushrooms are attractive, he said, because they're free. "An unbelievable 
amount of teen-agers are doing 'shrooms," he said. It's pretty common, 
Brittany said.

The teens and their father, James Frye, talked about their experience 
Wednesday in hopes of warning teens and parents. "It has opened my eyes," 
the father said. "You'd never think they'd walk out into a cow pasture and 
pick mushrooms that have this effect." Adults seem amazed, but teens always 
seem to know about 'shrooming, Frye said, adding he talked to a 
knowledgeable Summerville teen this week. He's learned from teens that 
mushrooms are free and easily accessible. Instead of trying to buy beer, he 
said he's been told, "The best thing to do is run out and get a mushroom 
and get high." Many mushrooms look similar to the white Amanita virosa 
mushroom, commonly called the destroying angel, said MUSC pharmacist Mark 
Baillie. From 10 percent to 30 percent of people who eat the mushroom die, 
he said. From 90 percent to 95 percent of mushroom poisonings worldwide are 
caused by Amanitas, he said, and just half a destroying angel, in its most 
potent stage, can kill a person. Brittany remembers eating a handful of 
caps and drinking mushshroom tea on July 2. She got nauseated six hours 
later and went to a Sumter emergency room. She was dehydrated and appeared 
to have food poisoning. She felt better only to get worse 24 hours later 
and return to the emergency room, where doctors found she was developing 
liver failure. At MUSC, Chavin said, it became clear that what she consumed 
was destroying her liver. While the transplant team waited for a liver from 
a dead donor, Brittany's condition declined so quickly that doctors instead 
considered a far newer alternative, taking part of the liver of a living 
donor. Her mother, Leisa Frye, was a good match and had a large enough 
liver and good enough health to undergo the risky donor surgery. "It's 
truly a mother's love that saved a child," Chavin said. MUSC began doing 
living donor liver transplants about six months ago, transplant surgeon 
Angello Lin said. If Brittany had eaten the poisonous mushrooms before 
then, he said, "Brittany probably would not be sitting here." "The 
transplant went fabulously," said Chavin, adding that success rates are 
usually poorer when a patient is as sick as Brittany was. By Wednesday, 
mother and daughter were doing well. Brittany might be released from the 
hospital by this weekend, Chavin said. "Her life will be different 
forever," he said. "She can get married and have kids, but her medical 
problem will have to be monitored forever." As for Brittany's two 
mushrooming companions, one developed liver problems but now seems to be 
recovering. The other, who was nauseated but not severely ill, probably ate 
a different kind of mushroom, Baillie said. Several similar-looking species 
were growing in the same field, he said. The destroying angel - as the 
Sumter mushroom was preliminarily identified - grows in woods and fields 
throughout North America from June to early November. The white mushroom, 
whose cap may discolor in the center with age, may sprout at a site one 
year, then not reappear for 10, Baillie said.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart