Mother of two dies after eating deadly mushrooms

A MOTHER of two died from poisoning after eating fatal death cap mushrooms which she may have mistaken for normal edible field mushrooms.

An inquest heard Thai national Amphon Tuckey, known as Juny, had eaten the mushrooms at the home of her niece, Kannika Tuckey, known as Pern.

The hearing was told Pern and her husband Paul had picked the mushrooms which had grown in the wild at the Ventnor Botanic Gardens on the Isle of Wight and had invited her aunt, who was married to Paul's brother Michael, to eat the mushrooms.

Pern also became ill after eating a small amount of the mushrooms but recovered after being treated at a specialist unit at King's College Hospital in London.

She told the inquest she had been anxious about trying the mushrooms but had been reassured when her aunt had eaten them.

The hearing was told that Juny had joked that if the mushrooms were poisonous then "they would both die together".

The inquest heard both women fell ill in the early hours of the next morning with Juny suffering severe vomiting and diarrhoea.

Her husband, Michael, called for an ambulance but when the paramedics asked Juny what she had been eating, she did not mention the mushrooms.

The inquest heard paramedics believed Juny was suffering from food poisoning and advised her husband to contact her GP in the morning if she was not better.

Toxicology tests carried out as part of a post-mortem examination showed she died of poisoning caused by eating the death cap mushrooms.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Isle of Wight Coroner John Matthews said it was "unfortunate" Juny had not told paramedics that she had eaten the mushrooms but said no medical intervention could have saved her life.