A family lunch ended in a catastrophe in the town of Villa Elisa, in the province of Entre Ríos: a 57-year-old man died and seven other people were hospitalized due to serious poisoning.
It is reported that a jar used to prepare the food is believed to have caused the fatal contamination.
According to Clarín, the family members met this Tuesday to share a stew. After the meal, one of those present. identified as René Sánchez, he began to feel severe stomach pains and malaise.
Moments later, the symptoms also affected the other members of the family. According to what was reported, some of those present were transferred to the San Roque Hospital in Villa Elisa, while Sánchez was rushed to the San Benjamín Hospital in the city of Colón.
Unfortunately, the man died hours later as a result of “cardiorespiratory arrest resulting from all the complications that occurred after consuming this food,” according to the head of the Villa Elisa Department, Danilo Parodi, to Channel 10 from Entre Ríos.
After this, the Colón Fiscal Unit ordered the transfer of Sánchez’s body to the Concordia judicial morgue, where an autopsy will be performed to determine the exact cause of death.
In turn, the Criminalistics Division of the Colón Police Headquarters collected samples of the food eaten for analysis. The main hypothesis that the researchers use is that the stew was the source of the poisoning that affected eight people, all of them adults.
Fatal poisoning in Entre Ríos: a bottle, in the spotlight
On the other hand, the director of the San Roque de Villa Elisa Hospital, Nahuel Martín, gave more details about the emergency situation this Tuesday.
In dialogue with Channel 9 Litoral, Martín reported that the hospital received seven patients with apparent symptoms of food poisoning after the family lunch.
Among the possible causes of the poisoning, mention was made of the presence of a suspicious ingredient used in the preparation of the stew.
According to reports, the family presented a jar, previously found on a public street and which they believed contained salt, as a possible source of the problem.
Alejandro Perroud, prosecutor in charge of the Colón Unit, declared that the contents of a bottle could have been a different and toxic substance, possibly nitrites, which would have caused the severe reaction in the diners.
The prosecutor elaborated that the jar had been found by family members who work in waste collection and who usually receive donations of objects found in garbage containers, assuming that they could be useful. “It is suspected that it was nitrite poisoning,” said Perroud. At the moment, it is believed that they could have mistaken it for a jar with salt.
