Health officials warn of deadly mushroom spotted in Western Washington | Health

Local health officials are warning people foraging for mushrooms to exercise caution after a case of poisoning from the "death cap" species of mushroom that has now been reported locally.

A Bellevue woman was hospitalized last month after eating the poisonous mushroom; she has since recovered.

The Amanita phalloides species, sometimes called "death cap" mushrooms, are highly toxic, public health officials warned. Those mushrooms cannot be distinguished from safe mushrooms using taste or smell.

And the woman didn't find the mushroom deep in some lush forest -- she found it in a downtown park right in the middle of Bellevue. We found nearly a dozen of them ourselves adjacent to a parking lot.

"It takes extensive knowledge to know which mushrooms are safe to eat and which are poisonous," Dr. David Fleming, Director and Health Officer for Public Health - Seattle & King County, said in a stateent. "Amanita phalloides look very much like some edible types of mushrooms and increasingly can be found in the wild, in local parks, and even in our own backyards. Only people who really know what they're doing should eat mushrooms they've picked themselves."

Health officials said the woman who ate the "death cap" didn't think it was poisonous because it looks almost identical to a non-poisonous mushroom that grows in her home village in Thailand.

"They seem to resemble mushrooms that grow in southeast Asia," said Dr. Jeff Duchin with the King County Health Department.

And whether she sliced, diced, broiled, fried or sauteed it - it didn't matter.

"Cooking it doesn't kill the toxin, heating it, drying it doesn't kill the toxin," Duchin said. "There's no way to tell that it's a toxic mushroom unless you're an expert."

Symptoms of poisoning by these mushrooms include abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. The first symptoms usually start within six to 24 hours of ingestion. Poisoning may result in damage to the liver and other vital organs, or even death.

Fleming says although cases of poisoning from the "death cap" mushrooms have been reported in Portland and British Columbia, the poisonous mushrooms were thought to be rare in Washington state until recently. There have been increasing numbers of the mushrooms spotted this fall, perhaps due to the wet weather.

If you desire to go picking mushrooms and want to know what to look for, the Puget Sound Mycological Society offers mushroom identification clinics for the public on Mondays from 4-7 p.m. at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture through the end of October.

You can find more information at www.psms.org or call (206) 522-6031.

If you suspect you may have eaten a poisonous mushroom, do not wait for symptoms to appear. Call Washington Poison Center at 1-800-222-1222 right away.