Eleven people were hospitalized after they ate wild and apparently toxic mushrooms last week, a fire agency that serves Pennsylvania Dutch Country said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The patients in Peach Bottom Township were a man, a woman and nine children who were treated at a hospital and released, according to NBC affiliate WGAL of Lancaster, Pennsylvania<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The township is in Dutch Country, which overlaps with Amish Country and shares culture and history, about 80 miles west of Philadelphia on Pennsylvania\u2019s border with Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The station reported that family members foraged wild mushrooms and ate them Friday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WGAL reported that a family member had to walk a half-mile to find a public phone to dial 911. The Amish generally disallow cellphones and other contemporary devices and technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emergency medical personnel arrived after 9:30 p.m. Friday and helped transport all 11 patients, Delta-Cardiff Volunteer Fire Company Station 57 said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because so many people were ill, the situation was designated a “mass casualty incident,” the agency said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people who are not trained experts known as mycologists should almost never eat mushrooms foraged outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the known mushroom poisonings and deaths in the U.S. involve foraging of Amanita phalloides mushrooms, known as “death caps,” in the wild, the CDC said in a report on the toxic fungi<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eating them can cause death, as well as abdominal discomfort, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration and liver damage, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n