Sydney, June 14 (IANS) An Indian woman living in Australia’s New South Wales state is all set to sue a grocery store which sold her toxic mushrooms, a media report said on Sunday.
Rajvir Kaur, 25, after consuming the mushrooms, fell ill with persistent vomiting and diarrhoea on April 24, 2014, but by the time she was taken to the hospital, she had multiple organ failure and required an emergency liver transplant surgery to save her life, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.
The mushrooms Kaur ate were identified as death cap mushrooms, a highly poisonous fungus that looks similar to a normal mushroom but releases deadly toxins into the body if consumed.
The Australian supermarket giant Woolworths has denied responsibility stating that an investigation carried out in 2014 found no traces of the toxic fungi and that the mushrooms may have been bought from somewhere else.
According to Kaur, the mushrooms were bought from the Woolworths about two weeks before consumption, making it unlikely that the same batch of mushrooms was present when the investigation took place.
Currently in Australia on a temporary visa, Kaur has applied for permanent residency.
“I’m going to need medical care for the rest of my life and I can’t get it there (India). This is the place where I was poisoned and I think I (should) be able to stay.”
Unable to work, Kaur is being supported by the local Sikh community.
–Indo-Asian News Service
da/ksk/pku/vm