Top Victorian coroner’s mushroom warning after woman dies from deadly tuna and rice meal

The death of an elderly Bayswater woman after she and her son ate a meal containing death caps, which she harvested from her garden, has sparked an urgent warning about wild mushrooms.

The state’s top coroner has issued a warning to Victorians against eating wild mushrooms after an elderly Bayswater woman died when she and her son ate a meal of death caps harvested from her garden.

Loreta Maria Del Rossi, 98, died at Eastern Health Wantirna a week after eating death cap mushrooms foraged from her garden in May this year.

It comes as accused mushroom murderer Erin Patterson is due to face trial for allegedly lacing a beef wellington meal with poison mushrooms last year, killing three people.

Ms Patterson has been charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder following the deadly July 2023 lunch at her Leongatha home.

Mr Cain has called for an advertising campaign to warn against mushroom poisoning. Picture: Chloe Smith.

In a bid to reduce further deaths, Victorian State Coroner Judge John Cain on Wednesday called for an annual advertising campaign to run every autumn by the Department of Health and Victorian Poisons Information Centre to alert Victorians to the dangers of eating wild mushrooms.

Mrs Del Rossi died from multi-organ failure from amanita poisoning, the toxin found in death caps, after preparing a homemade meal of tuna and rice for herself and her son, Nicola Del Rossi, with fungi growing in their front yard.

A finding handed down by Judge Cain on Wednesday revealed that Mrs Del Rossi had picked wild mushrooms from the same patch of yard a month earlier, which were white in colour.

She asked her son “if he thought they would be safe to pick and use in a meal” before telling him she would collect, clean and test them before they ate them in a tuna and rice dish.

They did not fall ill.

Then on May 15, Mrs Del Rossi made the same tuna and rice dinner from more mushrooms she collected from the same patch of yard, telling her son “she would pick them and prepare them in the same way she had done one month earlier”.

They both went to bed, and later that night, about 2am, Nicola heard his mother get up and go to the bathroom.

Erin Patterson is due to face trial for allegedly lacing a beef wellington meal with poison mushrooms last year, killing three people. Picture: Brooke Grebert-Craig.

About an hour later, he went to check on his mother who said “the mushrooms were no good” and she’d been vomiting.

“Nicola thought this may have been a simple case of food poisoning, as he had not experienced any ill effects himself,” the coroner’s finding states.

But by 6am, after getting up for work, Nicola also became unwell and started vomiting, then called triple-0.

Mrs Del Rossi’s condition deteriorated despite “aggressive treatments” and she advised hospital staff to end active treatments following “significant pain”.

She was moved into palliative care on May 20 and died two days later, while Nicola survived.

Still suffering the effects of the mushroom poisoning, Ms Del Rossi’s son, now has difficulty walking and requires a cane for support.

Returning to his Bayswater home on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Del Rossi indicated he was still reeling from the incident.

Having previously spoken with police and the coroner, Mr Del Rossi was unwilling to comment further on the matter.

Residents nearby the home said they remembered an elderly woman living at the address but the house had been quiet in recent months.

Yellow-staining mushrooms are often confused with edible mushrooms that can be bought from supermarkets. Picture: Supplied

Mrs Del Rossi would regularly collect wild edible grasses and plants to eat, including dandelion, milk thistle and cat’s ear, and grew her own vegetables.

His Honour noted that death caps grew under oak trees and were white, yellow, pale brown or green in colour.

Just 50g of the poisonous mushrooms could cause death in a 70kg adult.

Judge Cain commended the health department for publishing resources about the consumption of wild mushrooms.

“However, I believe that additional public awareness is merited,” he said.

The Department of Health had issued a public health advisory on its website in April warning against picking wild mushrooms unless those foraging had specific expertise.

The department had also warned the public to remove any mushrooms growing from yards to prevent children and pets from accidentally eating them.