DALLAS (KLUV) — A 19-year-old college student was forced to have his legs and fingers amputated after some leftover Chinese food caused him to become severely ill, including developing sepsis.
Doctors are calling it a "perfect storm of events," describing how the young man became ill after eating the leftover lo mein, chicken, and rice.
The teen was first admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital in March of 2021 according to the NY Post, suffering from "shock, multiple organ failure, skin mottling, and a rapidly progressive reticular rash."
The student was diagnosed with a bacterial infection called Neisseria meningitidis, which caused his blood to clot and his liver to fail. His skin necrosis was also said to be caused by “purpura fulminans,” a severe complication of meningococcal septicemia.
Dr. Bernard Hsu, a licensed toxicologist, called the student's illness a "freak accident happening in a perfect storm sequence of events."
While this appears just to be a freak accident, experts warn that items such as rice and pasta contain a bacterium called Bacillus cereus, which produces a toxin when heated and left out too long, i.e., stored improperly.
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