Earla Marshall and Amy Champion met at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital while their sons were undergoing treatment for E. coli O157:H7 infections. The two mothers determined that both sons had eaten at the Ellwood Moose Lodge gun auction and wild game dinner on the same day, and believe the boys became ill with symptoms of E. coli infection after the meal.
According to the New Castle News, the mothers began researching what they believed to be an outbreak. Marshall and Champion busied themselves trying to find other people who had attended the dinner, which Marshall said featured such meat as elk, moose, duck, bear and deer.
“We discovered six other people who had gotten ill and were diagnosed with E. coli,” Marshall said, noting that between 200 and 300 people attended the event. She added that leftovers from the dinner were given to the Franklin Township Volunteer Fire Department, and that some of the firefighters there fell ill as well.