NBC NEWS – In the days before Kamberlyn Bowler became ill, she went to McDonald’s several times for her favorite meal: a Quarter Pounder with cheese and extra pickles.
The previously healthy, active 15-year-old is now hospitalized and battling kidney failure — a rare and potentially life-threatening complication of E. coli poisoning.
Kamberlyn, of Grand Junction, Colorado, is one of dozens of people who say they became sick after having eaten McDonald’s Quarter Pounders. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 75 people across 13 states have been infected with E. coli following meals at the fast-food chain. One person has died.
McDonald’s says the most likely source of the contamination was slivered onions served on its Quarter Pounders. The restaurant giant has removed the onions from its menu items.
The distributor of the onions, California-based Taylor Farms, has said that while no specific ingredient has been confirmed as the source of the outbreak, it has “preemptively recalled” yellow onions from the Colorado facility that distributed produce to food service customers.
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In her first interview about her ordeal, Kamberlyn, a high school freshman, wiped away tears as she summarized how the past few weeks have felt: “Not fun,” she said via Zoom from her hospital room Monday afternoon.
Kamberlyn’s mother, Brittany Randall, said her daughter’s symptoms started this month with a fever and stomach pain. Neither Kamberlyn nor Randall was too concerned at first.
“We both kind of thought I just had a fever, like just the flu or something — a stomach bug,” Kamberlyn said. “But then I started throwing up, having diarrhea, and it was bloody, so it scared me.”
Randall took Kamberlyn to the doctor and then to the emergency room for some scans, which didn’t show anything significant, she said. But back at home, Kamberlyn didn’t get better …