Mushroom-Spiked Tea Leaves Boy Critical

A 15-year-old boy who drank orange tea boiled with wild mushrooms in an attempt to get high was in critical condition Friday after having a liver transplant to save his life, authorities said.

The boy and eight friends passed around a jug of the tea last Friday night, not knowing that they had used a “death cap” mushroom that can kill rather than the hallucinogenic kind, officials said.

Doctors said that the boy, who drank more tea than his friends, would have lived only a few days without the transplant. The other teens who were poisoned sought medical help right away and are expected to recover.

“Even experts make mistakes,” said Dr. Sven A. Normann, director of the Florida Poison Information Center in Tampa. “Eating a mushroom is like playing Russian roulette.”

Normann said the boy probably ingested a mushroom from the family amanita phalloides, one of the top 20 most poisonous mushrooms out of the 100 considered harmful to people.