The widower of a woman who tragically died after eating at a sushi restaurant has revealed her haunting final words before she passed away.

Donna Ventura, 64, was left fighting for her life after an lunch date with her husband Jon turned lethal when she ordered the ‘special roll’ off the menu at Dave’s Sushi in Bozeman, Montana.

The retired financial advisor went into complete kidney and liver failure, was unable to breathe without a ventilator and was left in agony for 13 days at the Bozeman Health hospital, after eating at the popular restaurant in April last year.

She was one of the 51 unsuspecting diners who became seriously ill – and one of the two who died – after eating Dave’s Sushi’s special roll, which consisted of salmon and was topped with morel mushrooms.

Donna Ventura passed away nearly two weeks after dining at Dave’s Sushi last year (KBZK)

The latter is one of the most easily recognised edible mushrooms, which are fine to consume when cooked – however, the portion which Donna and the other customers ate were not.

As they are poisonous, they have to be cooked before they are safe to eat – and although all tests for pesticides and other toxins came back clear, investigators found those who became unwell had all eaten uncooked mushrooms. Other diners who ate cooked mushrooms were fine.

Deadly dinner

Shortly after leaving the restaurant, Donna became extremely ill and her husband of 34-years had to bundle her into the back of an ambulance to Bozeman Health, where she then went into cardiac arrest.

She remained in the intensive care unit on a ventilator, with Jon and her son at her bedside, from 17 April 2023 to April 29.

The mum was battling poisoning after eating the special roll, as the toxins in the uncooked morel mushrooms had sent her liver and kidneys into failure.

The fungi were found to be ‘true morels’, which usually have lower levels of the toxin hydrazine in, but are still deadly if consumed raw.

Hydrazine can inflame and damage organs as well as inducing nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and abdominal pain, as it causes direct damage to kidney and liver cells.

This counteracts their ability to clean a person’s blood, while destroying red blood cells, resulting in organ failure and inflammation.

Discussing his wife’s final days, Jon told KBZK News that he handed Donna a red marker pen and a piece of paper so that she could communicate with him and their son.

He explained that after she passed away on the morning of 29 April after declining a feeding tube, he was unable to make it to the hospital in time to say goodbye.

Last words

Her husband of 34-years revealed her last words as she fought for life in hospital (KBZK)

The dad said: “I told my wife on her deathbed that one of my jobs would be to hold those accountable for what they’ve done to her. It worries me greatly about the people who eat at Dave’s Sushi.”

Revealing her final words to him, Jon said Donna scribbled messages including, ‘I’m not sure I can go on much longer’, ‘How are we going to manage?’ and ‘I can’t stand the pain’.

He added: “And then the last couple she wrote were to me and our son, where she wrote ‘I love you’ and to our son, ‘I love you, Mr C’.”

Both Donna and William Lewis, 74, of Toston, Montana, passed away after dining at Dave’s Sushi.

An investigation conducted by Gallatin County health departments found that between 28 March and April 17, 2023, the pair and 50 other people became unwell after eating the morel mushrooms at the restaurant.

Morel mushrooms are fine to consume cooked, not raw. (Suzi Pratt / Getty Images)

Three of these were also hospitalised.

Jon has launched a legal battle against Dave’s Sushi – which was temporarily shut down in April before it reopened the following month – and is suing the eatery for wrongful death.

Investigators from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said of the case: “On April 8, morels were served partially cooked: a hot boiled sauce was poured over the raw morels, after which they were marinated for 75 minutes.

“On April 17, the morels were uncooked and cold-marinated before serving.”

The investigation

Officials reckon those who ate the second batch of mushrooms, which were not cooked, were nine times more likely to become sick than the people who consumed them on 8 April.

Speaking to MTN News, Dave’s Sushi said it has been ‘fully transparent’ throughout the investigation and have since ‘implemented Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) extensively in our kitchen’.

The restaurant said: “Our entire kitchen management team is ServSafe Manager certified. We have also implemented extensive food and environmental safety measures, testing, and monitoring.

“We hope that other retailers and restaurants that plan on continuing to distribute and prepare morel mushrooms educate their clients and consumers that these mushrooms are not fully understood.

“We understand from the case control study performed that the morel mushrooms served at Dave’s being undercooked contributed to a greater likelihood of people becoming ill from their consumption.

“There are numerous reports of people becoming ill, in some cases fatally, from eating cooked morel mushrooms.

“We are grateful that The CDC and FDA have both released their first and only publicized guidelines on morel mushrooms.

“We hope that this information is distributed with morel mushrooms in hopes that a tragedy such as this is prevented from happening again. We feel awful about this outbreak, especially for the individuals and families affected from consuming the morel mushrooms at Dave’s Sushi.”

LADbible have contacted Dave’s Sushi for further comment.

There’s a medical warning to be aware of when it comes to eating sushi after a woman tragically died from eating it in a restaurant.

Donna Ventura, 64, had gone for a lunch date with her husband Jon and some friends at Dave’s Sushi in Montana in April last year when she was left fighting for her life.

She went into complete kidney and liver failure after ordering the ‘special roll’ from the menu, and spent 13 days in hospital, unable to breathe without a ventilator, before she sadly died.

Her grieving husband told KBZK how the toxins from the uncooked morel mushrooms destroyed her kidneys and liver and damaged her esophagus and trachea.

Donna sadly died as a result of what she’d eaten. (KBZK)

Donna was one of 51 diners who became seriously ill after eating the special roll (one other also died), containing salmon and a morel mushroom topping.

Those are one of the most popular edible mushrooms and are totally fine to consume when cooked but those fatal portions were not.

Investigators found those who fell victim had all eaten uncooked mushrooms whereas others who ate cooked ones were fine – that’s because they’re poisonous.

And while the mushrooms were the responsible factor in this case, doctors have previously warned of the dangers of ingesting parasites from sushi.

Experts in Portugal wrote in British Medical Journal Case Reports about treating a 32-year-old bloke who was found to have larvae from a parasite attached to his gut lining after spending a week suffering from stomach pain, vomiting and a fever.

Sushi is usually made with ‘raw’ fish. (Getty Stock Photo)

And when he said he’d recently ate sushi, doctors began to suspect he could have anisakiasis – that’s because sushi is of course, typically raw fish.

This is a parasitic disease caused by worms that if not coughed up or vomited out, can burrow into the walls of the intestines.

Anisakiasis occurs when infected larvae are ingested from undercooked or raw fish or squid. Usually, after some painful stomach ache, nausea and vomiting, the worms eventually die and are removed by the immune system.

However, in some more severe cases, doctors may need to remove them to reduce pain, typically done by surgery or endoscopy.

In the case of the man, doctors performed an endoscopy and found the larvae of a worm-like parasite firmly attached on an area of swollen and inflamed gut lining. After removing it, the ‘patient’s symptoms resolved immediately’.

To kill anisakiasis, it is recommended to freeze the fish at -20C or below for 24 hours. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say: “Anyone who eats undercooked or raw fish or squid is at risk.”

The fish needs to be prepared properly. (Getty Stock Photo)

The investigation into the Dave’s Sushi cases

Officials reckon those who ate the second batch of mushrooms, which were not cooked, were nine times more likely to become sick than the people who consumed them on 8 April.

Speaking to MTN News, Dave’s Sushi said it has been ‘fully transparent’ throughout the investigation and have since ‘implemented Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) extensively in our kitchen’.

The restaurant said: “Our entire kitchen management team is ServSafe Manager certified. We have also implemented extensive food and environmental safety measures, testing, and monitoring. We hope that other retailers and restaurants that plan on continuing to distribute and prepare morel mushrooms educate their clients and consumers that these mushrooms are not fully understood.

“We understand from the case control study performed that the morel mushrooms served at Dave’s being undercooked contributed to a greater likelihood of people becoming ill from their consumption.

“There are numerous reports of people becoming ill, in some cases fatally, from eating cooked morel mushrooms. We are grateful that The CDC and FDA have both released their first and only publicized guidelines on morel mushrooms.

“We hope that this information is distributed with morel mushrooms in hopes that a tragedy such as this is prevented from happening again. We feel awful about this outbreak, especially for the individuals and families affected from consuming the morel mushrooms at Dave’s Sushi.”

LADbible have contacted Dave’s Sushi for further comment.

The husband of a doctor who died at Disney World has alleged that his wife had an allergic reaction after eating at a restaurant in the Florida park.

NBC reports that Jeffrey J. Piccolo has filed a lawsuit in which he claims that his wife, Dr Kanokporn Tangsuan, died of an allergic reaction, and accused the restaurant where she ate of negligence.

On 5 October last year, Dr Tangsuan was eating at the Raglan Road Irish Pub at Disney World’s Disney Springs area along with her husband and her mother.

They had chosen the restaurant as they believed it could accommodate her allergies, and the lawsuit alleges that they were told they could get menu items allergen-free if they asked for it.

The 42-year-old New York doctor died that night of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction, according to an autopsy report cited in the lawsuit.

Instagram/@raglanroadpub

The legal documents filed on behalf of the doctor’s husband allege that they were told by their server that foods could be made allergen-free, and were told ‘unequivocally’ after asking several times that this would be the case.

Ordering the ‘Sure I’m Frittered’, ‘Scallop Forest’, ‘This Shepherd Went Vegan’ and ‘Onion Rings’ dishes from the menu, some of them arrived without ‘allergen-free flags’ which prompted the couple to inquire again.

The legal documents alleged that they received the same answer from their server once again when they asked.

It then describes the couple splitting up at around 8pm as Piccolo went back to their hotel room and Dr Tangsuan stayed out to go shopping.

The court document says that at around 8:45pm she started having trouble breathing, went into a nearby restaurant and collapsed due to ‘severe acute allergic reaction to the food served at Raglan’.

Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images

She attempted to stop her allergic response with an EpiPen and was taken to hospital.

When her husband tried to call her, the lawsuit alleges that a bystander answered his wife’s phone and told Piccolo what had happened.

When he reached the hospital he had been told that his wife had died, with the complaint saying that according to her autopsy she had elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system and that her death was an accident.

The lawsuit names Disney Parks and Resorts and the Raglan Road Irish Pub as defendants, alleging multiple counts of negligence and seeking over $50,000 (£39,000) in damages.

LADbible has contacted Disney Parks and Resorts for comment.

If you were to eat the same thing for three months, it’s likely you might choose your favourite meal, maybe a pasta dish or a good hearty stir fry. Or perhaps you’d go for something quite simple that you wouldn’t get sick of.

But you probably wouldn’t choose a stinky tin of fish, right?

Well, prepare yourself for the thought of that, as a woman explained the ‘shocking’ things eating just sardines for three months did to her body. Yep, sardines and nothing else.

Jane Crummett was struggling with her health due to extreme foot pain, inflammation and food addiction when she decided to make a dramatic lifestyle change.

The 62-year-old retired military therapist weighed roughly 17 stone at her peak, and suffered from plantar fasciitis, which made walking tough.

Crummett reckons it’s worked wonders. (Youtube/Dr. Boz [Annette Bosworth, MD])

So, in 2020, Crummett adopted a carnivore diet and lost 65 pounds, but she ended up hitting a plateau and her weight crept back on. It was time to try something else.

In May, she hit a weight of 14 stone and decided to try out Flordia physician Annette Bosworth’s 72-hour sardine fast. The method from ‘Dr Boz’ is supposed to jump-start metabolism and send a person’s body into advanced ketosis to rapidly burn fat for energy.

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But the woman didn’t leave it at three days, and has stuck to the fish.

“People think I’m absolutely nuts,” she told Bosworth on her YouTube show last month.

Crummett explained she eats four cans of sardines every day and supplement with MCT oil.

Consuming around 1,500 daily calories (the NHS advises the average man needs 2,500kcal and the average woman 2,000kcal), she said she’s ‘not starving herself’. The woman claimed that her oily fish only diet had restored her energy, reduced her blood sugar and relieved her pain.

She’s hooked. (Getty Stock)

Crummett also said she lost 12 pounds of fluid in the first two weeks of this regime.

A UK doc from healthcare company Jude pointed out that mercury can accumulate in the body despite sardines being low in it in small amounts as well as pointing out other potential downsides.

“Firstly, [sardines] contain zero fiber. Fiber is crucial for gut health and digestion. A diet based solely on sardines could lead to constipation,” Dr. Masarat Jilani told Surrey Live. “The way sardines are canned means they are usually preserved in either salt or oil.

“If they are salted sardines, you will be consuming an excessive amount of sodium, which can raise your blood pressure and put strain on your kidneys.”

The NHS stresses the importance of a healthy, balanced diet to help maintain good health including at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day. It’s important to speak to a doctor or registered dietitian if you’ve got concerns about your diet.