‘He was dying’: Last-ditch effort to save mushroom lunch guest

Erin Patterson has become visibly upset as a doctor who treated her four lunch guests recalled their dying days in hospital.

Erin Patterson, left. is on trial for allegedly serving a deadly mushroom lunch that led to the deaths of three people. Ian Wilkinson, right, the sole survivor, was hospitalised for weeks with acute organ failure.

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An emergency liver transplant was performed on one of Erin Patterson’s lunch guests in a last-ditch effort to save his life after he consumed poisonous death cap mushrooms in a deadly beef Wellington, the court has heard.

Austin Hospital intensive care director Stephen Warrillow, giving evidence in Ms Patterson’s murder trial, said her father-in-law, Donald Patterson, presented with “grossly abnormal” symptoms and organ failure two days after a lunch at her home.

Dr Warrillow, who treated all four lunch guests, said despite emergency surgical intervention and treatment with a death cap mushroom antidote, Mr Patterson “got relentlessly worse”.

“All of our treatments had unfortunately failed and he was dying,” he told the court.

Ms Patterson was charged with the murder of three of her estranged husband’s relatives – Donald Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson – after allegedly deliberately feeding them death cap mushrooms at a lunch at her home on July 29, 2023.

She is also accused of the attempted murder of Ms Wilkinson’s husband, Ian, who was present at the lunch but survived after Austin Hospital doctors performed abdominal surgery.

Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty.

Donald and Gail Patterson arrived at the Austin Hospital on July 31 from Dandenong Hospital, Dr Warrillow told the court on Friday.

Mr and Ms Wilkinson were transferred to his care the day after.

Mr Patterson was “critically ill and in multiple organ failure” before being put on life support.

“We identified that he had a severe liver injury and severe liver failure,” Dr Warrillow said, adding that his “blood clotting elements were grossly abnormal”.

“He was on a breathing machine, so on life support ventilation with a tube down into his windpipe through his mouth and receiving medication to assist his comfort during that time.”

Dr Warrillow said “the only possibility” of saving Mr Patterson’s life was through a liver transplant. But even after surgery, Dr Warrillow said he “got relentlessly worse”.

Mr Patterson died on August 5, 2023, about 11.30pm.

Gail Patterson was experiencing similar symptoms to her husband as her organs were “effectively shutting down,” Dr Warrillow said.

“She remained extremely unwell to the point where, from a clinical perspective, her liver was not working at all,” he said.

Ms Patterson did not undergo a liver transplant due to “the advanced state of her organ failure”.

“She was too sick to undergo the necessary surgery,” Dr Warrillow said, adding that eventually a “section of bowel had died”.

Heather Wilkinson also suffered multiple organ failure, Dr Warrillow said, and “she was too unwell to undergo the complex surgery for a liver transplant”.

She died on August 4, 2023, about 2.05am.

Don and Gail Patterson died after ingesting poisonous mushrooms.

Mr Wilkinson underwent a laparotomy on August 4, 2023, Dr Warrillow said, after being diagnosed with “acute liver failure”.

Doctors observed a “slow but important improvement over the next several days”, Dr Warrillow said.

“It was very slow because he was coming from a situation of extreme critical illness,” he said.

He was discharged from the intensive care unit to the ward on August 21, 2023, and on September 11, 2023, was moved to a rehabilitation ward.

Asked how close Mr Wilkinson came to death, Dr Warrillow said: “We thought he was going to die. He was very close”.

Dr Warrillow told the jury that all four of the guests were diagnosed with acute organ failure due to the consumption of amanita phalloides – poisonous death cap mushrooms.

The trial continues on Monday.