Grand Junction teen battles kidney failure after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounders

A 15-year-old high school freshman is hospitalized with severe complications of food poisoning after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers three times over the course of several weeks. deadly outbreak of E. coli was discovered.

Camberlin Bowler of Grand Junction, Colorado, had to fly 250 miles to a hospital near Denver in mid-October where she underwent 10 days of emergency dialysis to save her kidneys.

She is one of at least 75 people sickened and 22 hospitalized in the outbreak believed to be caused by contaminated onions. In Mesa County, where Camberlin lives, 11 people have become ill and one person has died. Federal health officials said chopped onion used in hamburgers are the likely source of the outbreak.

The ordeal left Camberlin’s mother, Brittany Randall, concerned about her daughter’s health and shaken by the idea that a hamburger could potentially cause so much harm.

“It’s very scary to know that we believe and believe so much that we’re going to eat something healthy and it could be spoiled,” Randall said.

She plans to sue the fast food chain after Camberlin contracted the virus. bacteria E. coli O157:H7 confirmed during the outbreak.

According to medical experts, this bacterium produces a dangerous toxin that can cause a severe complication of kidney disease known as hemolytic uremic syndrome. Many children are hospitalized for several weeks, and some require kidney transplants, said Dr. Maida Khalid, a kidney specialist at Riley Children’s Hospital in Indiana who is not involved in Camberlin’s care.

“Time is of the essence,” Khalid said. “We have to go through this window, and we have to go through it with great care,” she said.

The disease can be fatal, but most children eventually recover, she said.

Camberlin said she ate McDonald’s Quarter Pounders with cheese, extra pickles and onions three times between Sept. 27 and Oct. 8. She said the hamburgers were easy to grab during football breaks and while watching a high school softball game.

After a few days, she began to feel unwell, with fever, vomiting, diarrhea and painful abdominal cramps.

“I couldn’t get out of bed,” she recalled. “I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink. I survived on popsicles. I felt like crap.”

Randall, who works as a prison guard, has three older children and thought her little daughter might just have the flu. But when Camberlin wrote that she had blood in her stool and urine and was vomiting blood, Randall said she knew it was serious.

On October 11, Camberlin was admitted to a hospital in Grand Junction. Doctors said she most likely had a stomach problem. She was sent home with instructions to stay hydrated. By October 17, she was no better and returned to the emergency room. According to her mother, tests then showed that Camberlin had acute kidney failure. She was airlifted to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, near Denver, where she remained Tuesday.

Randall said her daughter’s future health (and medical costs) are uncertain.

“Hospital bills are going up,” she said. “And I’m a single mom, and I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to afford everything that’s going to happen after all of this. And I don’t know what the future looks like either.”