23 Stricken by Food After Wedding Fete

A wedding celebration in Pacoima was ruined Saturday afternoon when at least 23 people were hospitalized for food poisoning after eating homemade enchiladas, tacos and tostadas at the reception.

The party ended early at the church, Iglesia de Dios, when the bride and groom, Francisco and Elba Orellana and some of the 150 guests, began feeling nauseated. Paramedics were called at 3:39 p.m. after some members of the wedding party returned to the newlyweds’ Sepulveda apartment and grew sicker.

Scores of paramedics and firefighters turned the apartment building’s courtyard into a makeshift emergency room as they checked the conditions of each victim. Ten ambulances sped to the scene where the ailing people lay moaning on large rubber mats.

The partygoers complained of nausea, headaches, diarrhea and cramps. None of the victims were seriously ill, said Jim Wells, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

By Saturday night, most had been treated and released from one of seven area hospitals. Twenty people were taken to hospitals from the apartment complex, and three more from a Pacoima home to which they had returned after the wedding.

Wells said the Fire Department received additional food-poisoning complaints from other Los Angeles areas Saturday, and officials suspected the calls came from other wedding guests.

An outbreak of food poisoning as large as the one that occurred Saturday is unusual, said Division Fire Chief Jim Mullen.

Officials took food samples for analysis from the wedding spread, which guests said included chicken tacos, cheese enchiladas, tostadas, cake, punch and soda. The county Department of Health Services will investigate the incident, said department spokesman Toby Staheli.

The food was prepared by wedding guests and paramedics reported that some of the celebrants were blaming the cheese, possibly a Monterey jack cheese, for their illness.

“It could be anything,” Mullen said. In hot weather, “food can spoil at a moment’s notice,” he observed.

“This more or less ruined the whole day,” said Hilma Orellana, a sister of the groom, who was treated along with her 8-month-old daughter at Olive View Medical Center.