“I’m not sure I can go on much longer,” scrawled Donna Ventura in red marker last April while laying in a bed at Bozeman Deaconess Regional Medical Center last April.
She was there for 12 painful days after eating uncooked morel mushrooms at a restaurant called Dave’s Sushi, according to a report this week from KBZK. Ventura was one of two people who died from eating the mushrooms.
Overall, 51 people became ill at the restaurant around the same time, and 45 reported eating the mushrooms.
Audacy reported on the Dave’s Sushi deaths last year. This week, the family of Donna Ventura revealed to KBZK this week how traumatic it was to see their loved one perish before their eyes from the morels.
“It was surreal to think that the simple act of eating lunch would end up putting her in the intensive care unit,” her husband, Jon Ventura, told the outlet. He had first met Donna in 1987 after they finished graduate school in Washington D.C., and they married in 1989. For 17 years, the couple worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Jon described his wife as “smart, articulate, feisty, opinionated, and prepared to do verbal battle with me.”
It was a nightmare for him to watch his wife rendered unable to speak from the seemingly innocuous sushi roll on April 17 of last year. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the Bozeman, Mt., sushi restaurant served a roll with the uncooked mushrooms and salmon that day.
“She had the special roll with what we now know – uncooked morel mushrooms,” said Jon. Within an hour, she was so sick that Jon decided to call Donna an ambulance. Once at the hospital, she went into full cardiac arrest.
Toxins from the uncooked mushroom proceeded to destroy her kidneys and liver. They also damaged her esophagus and trachea.
“Her skin was tight, fluids were building up in her system – she was in enormous pain,” her husband explained.
Since she was so frustrated at being unable to speak, Donna’s family gave her a red magic marker so she could communicate with them.
“How are we going to manage,” she wrote in one. “I can’t stand the pain, can somebody clean my mouth,” she said in another. In her final note, Donna wrote to her husband and son: “I love you.”
Jon didn’t want to let his wife go, but she ultimately decided to refuse her feeding tube.
“When you’re married for as long as I was, you can understand your partner’s body language and looks,” said Jon. “The third or fourth time I talked to her about it I got the look that said: ‘I’ve made my decision and I’m done, I’m not talking about this anymore.’”
When Audacy reported on the morel investigation last year, Dave’s Sushi had a notice about the mushrooms up on its website. It has since been removed.
“Above all else, our hearts go out to the loved ones of the two people who passed away and to all who have been impacted, no matter the circumstances,” said the restaurant. It said that the Gallatin City-County Health Department, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the FDA investigated the “unthinkable and tragic foodborne illness related to morel mushrooms that were served at our restaurant.”
The New York Post reached out to the lawyers representing Dave’s Sushi, but didn’t immediately hear back, according to a Tuesday report. KBZK interviewed the restaurant this week about what has changed since the morel incident.
“Although morel mushrooms are generally considered edible, rare cases of illness have been reported after consumption; little is known about the human health effects of morels,” said the CDC in a report issued last month. The centers said that morel mushrooms should be cooked before they are eaten.
Per the report, others impacted by the morels served at Dave’s Sushi reported experiencing severe nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Both Donna Ventura and the other patron who died had underlying conditions that impacted their ability to survive fluid loss. An investigation revealed that both patrons who died consumed the same roll with morel mushrooms.
“ Morels were a new menu ingredient and were the only ingredient unique to the special sushi roll, making it an early suspected source of the outbreak,” the CDC said. “The morels were prepared in various ways during March 27–April 17.”
An inspection also found multiple violations at the restaurant including temperature control issues, improper time control and sanitization procedures, and improper storage of personal items. The mushrooms were from China and investigators traced them back to a single importer and a separate distributor that supplied mushrooms to multiple states. No other illness cases have been reported due to these mushrooms.
Donna Ventura died on April 29 last year at age 64. Jon wears their wedding bands, fused together, around his neck to this day. He also holds on to a vow he made to Donna on her deathbed – to hold whoever is responsible accountable for her death.
Now, he’s suing Dave’s Sushi.
“If you look at the records available through the Gallatin County Health Department, they’ve had multiple health code violations, not only at Dave’s Sushi but the other restaurants Aaron Parker owns, Jam and Revelry,” he said.
So far, they’ve avoided all responsibility, Jon told KBZK. He plans to establish a scholarship at Montana State University in Donna’s name if he receives damages form the suit.
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