CHICKEN TRAGEDY Brit mum-of-two, 37, died after eating ‘one bite’ of bloody chicken at hotel restaurant on Greek holiday

Jesus ! Ive never really seen a "hatchet faced" person before,but thats one for sure! Who the fuck would even take one bite of bloody chicken???

An inquest heard how the triathlete started to eat a portion of chicken from a restaurant buffet when she cut into the meat and it oozed blood.

I wonder if it was the second piece of chicken that did it.

Eat American.

How can it be chronic if it started suddenly and killed her in days?

Brit gals are so dreadful when it comes to enjoying holiday

That article makes no sense. At the hospital she was diagnosed with gastroenteritis, which has an incubation period of roughly 2 days. Food poisoning like salmonella can happen in hours.

[quote] An inquest heard how the triathlete started to eat a portion of chicken from a restaurant buffet when she cut into the meat and it oozed blood. Natalie, of Harpenden, Herts., returned the uncooked chicken for a different piece before she started to feel unwell later that evening.

She had blood clots throughout her body. Did Ms. Triathlete take energy drinks to keep her body going? Did she have damaged tissue in her body? Blood clots don't just expand instantly like an airbag upon impact to cut off blood circulation.

Fowl play?

Killed by cock?

A piece of undercooked, or even raw chicken doesn't ooze blood. And even if it did, why would she eat whatever it was that was oozing blood? Her husband has probably been poisoning her.

Chicken doesn’t ooze blood though, perhaps she cut into a tumor the chicken had?

This story makes zero sense. Commenters have already poked holes in the story as reported.

R10, Men don’t usually poison, but it’s possible.

I’m assuming these are”before” pictures - cuz she looks frighteningly unhealthy and close to death in these pics.

Yeah, it's very hard to pin point food poisoning unless several people from the same place get sick and they test the food they all ate. She could have been poisoned, or she could have gotten ill on something she ate earlier in the day. And no, raw chicken doesn't ooze blood. Could also be an illness unrelated to anything she ate.

"Chicken Tragedy" also sums up Kevin Spacey's life and career.

This is a horribly written and reported article.

So it was E. Coli or not? They don't connect the widespread blood clots to E. Coli. How often does that happen; is it common?

If she developed blood clots, she didn't die from food poisoning. Sounds like she was already sick or was poisoned (maybe the food was contaminated with chemicals).

The husband poisoned her and made up the lame "oozed blood" story as a cover.

r15 for wit and wisdom

This story has more gaping holes than the meat rack at Fire Island.

Blood clots from food poisoning?

She probably died from eating actual food. You just know her cabinets are stuffed with bee pollen and the like.She looked like she was all gristle,poor thing.

So the hospital stated she died because she had the wrong genes!

I hate the Brit rags write. No matter what they do it's so tabloidy. Surprised they didn't somehow fit "Brit Mum's trim pins" in there somewhere. And I hate "Mum".

Is this article being updated? I swear I read new information in it each time. Was there a minimum word length restriction on the article, because if it was e. coli nobody needs to know about noncontributory details like blood clots. Woman eats improperly cooked food on holiday, gets sick, dies. Being a triathlete has nothing to do with an onslaught of toxic bacteria.

Clotting disorders (DIC) are one component of sepsis.

The likely undercooked chicken is the obvious smoking gun here, but it’s also possible the e.coli was present in improperly washed salad, she probably had more than one bite of that.

With that nose, this was the better way. The chicken was an angel of mercy.

The poultry was paltry.

I see it's a regular AMA conference in this thread. She died of septic shock and the obvious source was raw chicken. The "blood clots" refer to DIC (mentioned later in the article): disseminated intravascular coagulation associated with sepsis. It leads to micro- and macrovascular thrombosis. Google it. "Blood clots" can also refer to septic emboli, another gnarly complication of massive infection; both this and/or DIC play a role in why some people lose their digits and limbs if they're lucky enough to survive septic shock. The timeline described for her illness makes sense. Ultimately she died because her organs shut down as a result of the sepsis. There was a narrow window in which aggressive treatment may have saved her: front-line IV antibiotics, fluid resuscitation, pressors, dialysis, etc., but she was not in a place that could offer that and it may have been too late anyway.

It sounds like her husband had been poisoning her.

I ain't eating no bloody chicken, take it back and get me a new plate.

Her being British on a cheap Mediterranean holiday, I'll assume that the cause of death was acute alcohol poisoning.

As mentioned upthread, men almost never use poison on just one victim.

That’s a Frau tactic.

Men who poison do so on a grand scale with mass victims such as chemical & bio weapons

While I'm along for the "too soon?" ride in most cases, I really don't see how anyone can blame this woman for what happened.

You take a bite; you cut a a second bite and realize it's not completely cooked. Not complicated, not unfathomable.

What is moderately surprising is that no one else got sick since it was from a buffet, so food cross contamination was more than likely.

[quote] Super-fit Natalie Rawnsley

It's more tragic when it happens to those who are "super-fit", don't you think?

Blood clots from septicemia, aka septic shock.

For you Brits - the article says her insurance company wouldn’t let the Corfu hospital move her to one on the mainland with better facilities. How does all this work if your insurance is the NHS?

R35, I think the implication is that she was hale and hearty and still succumbed. Being fit and healthy doesn't protect you when it comes to certain infections.

Oh, those chavs...

[quote] the triathlete started to eat a portion of chicken from a restaurant buffet when she cut into the meat and it oozed blood.

Senseless. How do you eat something, THEN cut into it?

Uncooked chicken doesn’t ooze blood unless you just killed the chicken and chowed down on it in your backyard chicken coop.

It’s not verified in any story that she actually had E. coli

Several articles say “one bite,” and others say “a few bites.”

Why is reportage so shitty? The whole point of news is to get facts and print them, not make shit up, draw conclusions with no evidence and diagnose dead people in the newspaper.

E. coli has nothing to do with bloody chicken.

[quote] E. coli has nothing to do with bloody chicken

Sorry, meant E. coli might have nothing to do with bloody chicken

(R37) the NHS is free for British citizens who are physically present in the UK - if you're travelling abroad, it's always advisable to buy travel insurance to help you in medical emergencies. I think it is the travel insurance that article is referring to. If you're travelling within mainland Europe, it's also worth getting an E111 medical card, which provides reciprocal medical arrangements between the UK and certain number of European countries, and Greece is one such country.

In fairness, r35, I think they probably meant to write super freak but it auto-corrected to super-fit.

Again can someone tell me how sepsis and blood clots are related? Thnx. Also can someone start a thread about the Dyatlov Incident?

"Senseless. How do you eat something, THEN cut into it?"

[R40]. There are these little tiny knives you can get. You place them in your throat and work them with tiny pulleys.

R44, again, it's mostly DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation). When it's related to sepsis, it's provoked by endotoxins from gram-negative bacteria (like e-coli). The coagulation cascade becomes dysregulated, resulting in systemic fibrin clots that effect the smallest vessels and organ perfusion, and causes associated bleeding (because your clotting factors are being used up). It's... complex.

Or were you being a smartass with that Dyatlov Pass quip? Because a ton of people die every year when their sepsis goes unrecognized and treatment is offered too late.

If you start to see blotchy purple spots on you or someone else in the setting of flu-like symptoms and lethargy, it's too fucking late.

R47 Why isn't there a ribbon for undiagnosed sepsis? Can you start a movement?

Most cancer patients die of sepsis, so don’t go thinking it’s some rare condition. Doctors used to explain it as “showers of small blood clots” being repeatedly released into the bloodstream.

When young or viable people went septic after having surgery, we used to use a drug called Levophed to direct blood to the core body circulation, which was sometimes as bad as sepsis itself. Levophed was nicknamed “leave em dead” and we only used it for the most dire circumstances and only for people who “weren’t supposed to” die. Like if you were 87 & had open heart surgery & tanked, we wouldn't put you on Levophed. But if you were a 37 year old who was in relatively good heath and went septic after childbirth or after having a valve replacement, we’d do everything we could to save you and that meant putting you on a Levophed drip. Then we’d watch as fingers, toes, nose, ears, etc turned purple...it was awful. I still have nightmares.

R49, we still use levo even on old folks.

Does the skin stay purple after Levophed?

Isn’t salmonella the bacteria in raw chicken? e. Coli is from something else, no? Are there lab tests that can determine which one killed ya?

When skin turns purple from Levophed it usually turns black and the person loses that appendage. The fingers, toes, nose and ears are among the first, like in frostbite.

Blood cultures should determine which bug she was infected with. If they care to trace it carefully, e.coli can be identified by the strain. Maybe salmonella, too?

Sometimes perfusion can be restored if patients are able to come off high doses of pressors (IV vasoconstrictors), but not always. Lots of people lose fingers and toes because they become necrotic and gangrenous.

Salmonella is more likely than E. coli in chickens, though E coli is possible

But why would blood run out of a piece of chicken?

You don’t usually become ill only hours after ingestion when it comes to E. coli.

Sincere thanks to r52 through r55. You all taught me something.

This woman does not look healthy at all. I would start with she looks like an anorexic/bulemic. That in and of itself will weaken her whole body.

Oh and I have one more question: do you think that a transfer to another hospital might have saved her? I think that sometimes when your number’s up, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have the power over life and death that we think we do.

Anyway, RIP lady. I feel bad for the kids.

“An inquest heard how the triathlete started to eat a portion of chicken from a restaurant buffet when she cut into the meat and it oozed blood.

Natalie, of Harpenden, Herts., returned the uncooked chicken for a different piece before she started to feel unwell later that evening.“

....

“Natalie's husband said: "We were already at the table when Natalie came back with her food.

"Natalie started to eat hers and as she cut the chicken the chicken oozed red blood to which point I commented it looked bloody.

"She got up, took it back and replaced the chicken with a different piece."”

What does that mean? She put the chicken back? Where? Back in the chafing dish on the buffet? Why not throw it in the garbage? Or tell restaurant staff? Someone else might have gotten sick!

I call shenanigans.

Well that settles it: no Brits should ever go on holiday in continental Europe ever again.

[quote]Oh and I have one more question: do you think that a transfer to another hospital might have saved her?

She would have needed to be stable enough to transfer and the accepting hospital would have to be prepared to manage a critically ill patient in septic shock. Those are big "ifs." She died in a "makeshift ICU" so I can't imagine that place to stabilize her adequately to make the trip. On the whole, it sounds like too little, too late in her case.

[quote]I think that sometimes when your number’s up, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have the power over life and death that we think we do.

People do survive sepsis but the key is early detection and aggressive management. Even then, survival rates aren't fantastic.

Food poisoning has an onset of one hour typically.

No, most food poisoning has an onset of 6-24 hours and E. coli can be 1-10 days.

What was on her ipod?

I had cryptosporidium & I will never forget it. I worked in a hospital day surgery and we closed at 7 pm but that Friday evening we had someone coming out of OR a little later, so a coworker and I stayed and waited to admit the patient. We had a hot water tap for tea and coffee and we both had tea while waiting. We both got very, very sick and called in sick on Monday. When I went back to work I was told the supervisors were angry that we’d both called in and were going to start “an investigation.” I said, “Do it. I’ll bring you my ER papers” and I did. I’d left the hospital and gone 2 hours to my weekend place. The following evening I got sick. I. vomited for about 12 hours and then I got the most painful diarrhea I’ve ever had. It felt like someone was stabbing me with hot knives.

The weirdest thing was this TASTE in my mouth. Years ago department stores often had hair salons in them and when you walked past them you could smell permanent wave solution. It was unpleasant and you could sort of taste it.. I had that taste in my mouth and nose. i went to the local ER where they kept me for 20 hours, tanking me up with NS and dextrose IVs and giving me compazine.

I stayed away from work until Wednesday and when I went back, we were full of AIDS patients who’d been admitted for endoscopy & colonoscopy due to severe nause, vomiting and diarrhea. “Hmm, I guess a virus is going round.” I felt sick for weeks and couldn’t eat anything more than rice pudding and tapioca.

Months later I, along with everyone else in NYC, got a letter from DoH telling us that the water supply had been contaminated with crypto during the time that I’d gotten sick. I’d never heard of crypto before. Anyway, none of us had been given anti-protozoan medication because we’d been sick months before when DoH supposedly didn’t know we’d been contaminated. A lot of AIDS patients didn’t make it.

Very sad. Also, the irony that she looks like a chicken.

I bet she was in water earlier in the day and ingested deadly bacteria, or was stung by a jellyfish which caused her blood to clot. The chicken may have not been a factor at all.

I'll bet she didn't use hand sanitizer at the table before she reached for the bread basket.

I agree R67, because the family’s story is suspect. They’re trying ver6 hard to pin it on the restaurant and hospitals.

A jellyfish? Posioning?? Maybe aliens stuck her with a dirty probe.

Or, she ingested contaminated food, got sick, and died.

Two words....

prussic acid

I wonder if she had some low-level infection building up for days and the chicken provided the 1-2 punch.

This guy had the sepsis treatment like was mentioned upthread, and yeah, lost all his limbs and his nose. I wonder if that woman would have preferred death since she was so into running, etc? Shitty to have to choose.

It’s always the husband in those cases. ALWAYS. Why does anyone even bother to consider other possibilities in these cases? Tale as old as time.

I had a patient once who had DIC after childbirth. It was about a year later that surgeons took her to the OR to put a Hickman catheter into her for an IV because she had no arms or legs and central lines had clotted. The drs said as time went on they had to keep amputating well after the DIC had been treated. It was horrible. She was 36. Blind, too. No nose or ears.

R75 I understand the oath and all but at what point do doctors say enough is enough?

Re: dog lick

Many years ago I had my first patient with what was later called “flesh eating bacteria” and finally called “necrotizing fasciitis.” Nicked himself shaving. He was in his 50s. Lost all the skin and most muscles on his head. No nose, ears, eyelids, lips. They used to draw the curtains around his slot before they brought him out of the OR because they didn’t want other patients to see him. Up on the floor, the nurses used to walk him up and down the hallway late at night after softly closing the doors to other patient rooms. This was back in the day when people stayed in the hospital for a long time. He was in the hospital for over a year getting treatments and reconstructive surgeries. I remember one of his surgeries was a muscle transplant so he could move the left side of his mouth upwards, so he could smile one day. His wife divorced him because he became so suicidal she couldn’t take it. She remarried, but came to see him every week. Very sad case. He was going to have surgery on a Friday and the nurses begged the surgeon to do it two days later on Super Bowl Sunday. While he was in OR and PACU they decorated his room because his favorite team (Giants) was playing. He was very happy that day.

I heard he committed suicide a few years later. I don’t blame him. To go from being normal one day to a monster who could barely move his mouth was just awful.

I asked his plastic surgeon what happened and he told me about the shaving cut and that it was a strep bacteria. I was so surprised because up until that time almost all terrible skin infections I’d seen had been staph infections.

Jesus. All our medical Knowledge and people can still go through gruesome fucking nightmares.

Suicide under these circumstances is totally understandable. Jesus Christ.

but it's because of the medical knowledge r78, I mean the dog lick guy could have died of sepsis and the other guy could have died of fasciitis but they used the meds that I assume were vaso constrictors. Like Nancy Cruzan and Terry Schiavo could have just died on scene but were kept alive to live in a shitty state. That's what I mean about this lady, I wonder if she would rather have died than lost her limbs, etc. That's a hard choice.

This girl lost her arms and legs to meningitis. Now she's a YT makeup artist.

I deeply regret reading this nightmarish thread, informative as it has been.

I love petting dogs but I am never allowing one to lick my hand ever again. I might only wax instead of shaving heretofore. I never eat poultry or swim in the sea, anyway, and I prefer to boil tap-water before drinking.

This thread is deeply terrifying.

Certain E. Coli strains can produce shiga toxin, which in rare cases causes Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, which would explain the blood clotting all over in the body.

Do you have to be susceptible in some way, like a compromised immune system, for these infections to take root? FFS, millions of people pet dogs, eat under cooked chicken and swim in the sea. But only a rare few get this disease. Why?

Sure you won't r82...we'll be waiting for you, you know you want to do it!

r85 Yeah, the dog lick one says it's normally only alcoholics, the elderly or other immune compromised, or people with spleen issues. I would bet dog lick dude is a drinker, no fucking way would this fell a normal person. Scrawny chick in title probably was unhealthy in that healthy way.

I had food poisoning once. It was so awful, that I thought I was dying.

When I got to the ER, one asshole doctor kept asking me if I’d had unprotected sex. He was under the impression that I had gonorrhea, and said so (I’m a woman). I screamed at him and said”Listen asshole, since when does the clap make one shit their brains out for 3 days?” I was fucking furious, and I was in unbelievable pain.

I had E. Coli. Got it straight from Taco Bell. I had ordered three tacos, ate them, and started presenting symptoms with an hour or so from ingesting them.

R85 This is nature's way of weeding out the weak. Stupid science is fucking over evolution by trying to save them. But evolution will eventually win, it's been playing the game longer.

If you really want to freak the fuck out, google Fournier's gangrene. It disproportionately affects men. We had a patient who was a chef and nicked himself with a knife, got nec fasc ("neck fash," i.e. necrotizing fasciitis), and developed Fournier's. The only treatment is to cut away the affected flesh. Like a living horror movie.

^^Diabetes is a risk factor in the worst complications of infections/sepsis.

I went to a local family-owned Cantonese restaurant that was established in 1961 and apparently the décor had never upgraded through the years. You walk in and it's like going back in time, which wasn't a bad thing for me. The lighting was very dim (harder to see the thread-bare carpet which, no doubt, was the original along with chipped table tops and dirty walls) I should have known when I was handed, I kid you not, was a legal-sized laminated monstrosity of 5 pages, front and back. My go-to had always been a fried rice with shrimp, chop suey and crab Rangoon. Well, this time I thought I'd be daring and I order an exotic noodle soup. Something in the back of my mind told me "No, that item is probably not very popular and if they have any ready it was probably made a week prior now congealed in aluminum stock pot in the back of their refrigerator." Well, I wanted to be adventurous. Big mistake. I was sick for days. I learned the hard way. Never try an unpopular item from a big-ass plastic menu if you have to hold it 3 inches from your face. When the place finally announced it would be shutting down after 50 years many in the community went to see it one last time. Prominently displayed in the restaurant's front window was the health department's 'D' grade. The owner had scrawled her rebuttal across the letter D.

I read Bob Hope never ate at restaurants for fear of food poisoning.

Are we sure the chicken didn't take a bite of that poor woman's face? Well?

It's warm cause it just came from my body!

[quote]People do survive sepsis but the key is early detection and aggressive management.

Well, how do you detect it?

Little bitch you can't cluck with me if you wanted to, these is poultry, these is chicken, these is bloody food.

I've never heard of someone dying from a dog's lick. Millions and millions of dog owners and this is the first I've heard of something like that. That's just a one in a billion type of thing, or at least I hope it is.

I do know you're not supposed to let dogs lick your mouth.

R96 most people probably wouldn’t be able to detect it, other than feeling really really sick. If they’re close to a facility where competent staff can diagnose it in time and have the right tools/meds there is a slim chance they’ll make it. If they decide to try to sleep it off it’s probably game over.

R96, things that you may notice outside a clinical setting? A new high fever, with chills, sweats, fast pulse, low BP (if you can measure it) or feeling faint/weak, low urine output (darker, less frequent), nausea/vomiting, shortness of breath. There are specific labs we look for, but that's obviously once you're in the hospital.

All that and throw in early signs of cognitive impairment/confusion/poor critical thinking, with an impending sense of unexplainable doom/panic.

[quote]First pics of Brit mum-of-two...

Let's hope they're also the last pics!

Yet another lesson in why people should avoid third-world countries at all costs.

[quote] with an impending sense of unexplainable doom/panic.

Interesting!

I guess the ancient lizard part of their brain can sense that they're dying.

However, I suspect most people ignore and override that feeling.

[quote]All that and throw in early signs of cognitive impairment/confusion/poor critical thinking, with an impending sense of unexplainable doom/panic.

Honey, I have that every day.

[quote]Very sad. Also, the irony that she looks like a chicken.

I know right? But there's a lesson to be learned here -- I have to remember not to eat a devastatingly-handsome daddy type for lunch.

How many here have been eating ass for years and are now hesitant to pet a dog?

[quote] Never try an unpopular item from a big-ass plastic menu if you have to hold it 3 inches from your face

What you should avoid is Chinese restaurants that sell “chop suey.”

Buck never would have ORDERED the chicken!!!

What's chicken?

This makes no sense at all. Did her husband poison her? Because if she did not eat the chicken, how did she get food poisoning?

Wow, R111

R104 it’s possibly a combination of symptoms such as racing pulse low bp difficulty breathing, maybe toxins affecting the brain as well ? Just going from foggy memory of the only time I 911’d myself.

No mention of the brain-eating amoeba yet? My friend went into a coma and barely survived that shit. No visible damage, however.

Isn't that what the zip liners and other lake goers get? Yeah, fuck lakes. I'm an ocean gal.

R114, when did that happen? Has your friend fully recovered?

Brain eating amoeba is clearly happy to have been left out of this one.

r115 Yup, nasty bodies of water. I think there was also a panic surrounding neti pots at some point in the past but I don't know how many people actually got it that way.

r116 It happened three or four years ago when she took a swim in a pond of sorts.

Forgot to add that yes, she fully recovered, although I think it took a while for her energy levels to come back to former levels. You'd think she'd come back as a zombie, but no.

Bump

It was stated in the article that the docs suggested her genetics in particular were thought to come into play how her body reacted to the particular E.Coli strain. Funny how few seem to read or retain what they read in the linked articles. R103 Greek Islands are not considered "Third World" either. Very sad story indeed.

Certainly not the Isle of Lesbos!

R121, that’s right. What would her genes have to do with anything? That was puzzling.

R123 I suspect the doctors really know some people's immune systems work differently, and whatever the response, it seemed not for the best in her particular case. There are so many metabolic pathways in the body, or chemical channels if you will; this storm of cytokines and inflammatory response more than likely varies widely I should think. It could possibly involve how her body specifically deals with the toxins the E.Coli produce, I think they're referred to as endotoxins.

Anyone actually confirmed it was chicken?

I'm sending my thoughts and prayers and in order to commemorate this awful TRAGEDY, I'm posting this in honour of the UK Chicken Mum:

[quote]I suspect the doctors really know some people's immune systems work differently, and whatever the response, it seemed not for the best in her particular case.

I suspect that the doctor who said this is an idiot. Maybe because of religion, maybe he grew up in a third world shithole, maybe he belongs to one of the backwards sand-based cultures... whatever the reason, I think what he said is along the same lines as saying that someone was killed by a ghost or demon: backwards idiocy.

r127 It was a buffet. Other people would have been exposed to the bacteria. This woman obviously had weaknesses that made her more susceptible to the infection.

[quote]Professor Sebastien Lucas, an infections expert, told The Hertfordshire Mercury gastroenteritis can be fatal in those with certain genes that put the body at a higher risk of developing disseminated intravascular coagulation, where the blood clots throughout the body.

E-coli is more commonly associated with beef. Salmonella is more commonly associated with chicken. I had Salmonella, because I bit into a chicken nugget that wasn't cooked all the way.

What did her in was DIC. According to her mom, she was bleeding from every orifice, which is a symptom of DIC.