An unnamed 43-year-old resident of Aventura, Florida, got hold of a small blowfish somewhere. So it remained unknown, he himself caught it, or bought it from someone else.
But anyway, this man had heard that in Asia such fish are valued for their very tasty meat and he decided to try this fish himself. He cooked it and then ate it with his grandmother. Moreover, if the grandmother ate only fish meat, the man ate the liver too.
In Japan, a dish called fugu is prepared from blowfish, and in order to prepare this dish, the chef must have special qualifications. The fact is that these fish are very poisonous, they contain the strongest poison tetrodotoxin, which is especially abundant in the liver.
Blowfish venom has a nerve effect. Soon after entering the human body, it causes acute pain, convulsions, a feeling of numbness in the limbs, and then, in most cases, death.
Shortly after having dinner with their grandmother, the man and woman felt unwell. The man had a stomach ache, his legs were numb and he could hardly speak. Fortunately for him, he managed to get to the hospital in this state.
His grandmother received mild poisoning and soon recovered, but the man was permanently disabled. Despite all the efforts of the doctors, the blowfish venom almost completely destroyed his kidneys. Until the end of his life, a man will now have to regularly undergo dialysis (extrarenal blood purification) in the hospital.
Also, during treatment due to poisoning, he developed pneumonia, his blood pressure rose sharply and he lay in intensive care for some time.
Blowfish dish.
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When the man arrived at the ambulance, he could barely speak and did not even say anything about eating blowfish. When the doctors took a blood test from him, they found traces of cocaine in it and the patient admitted that he had taken a dose 3 days ago. Because of this, for the first hours, doctors thought that all the symptoms in a man were due to an overdose.
Then they decided that he had botulism due to bacteria in his food and started giving him antibiotics, activated charcoal, and urinary medicine. Due to the numbness of the pelvic organs, the man could not go to the toilet on his own.
Only later it was found out that he had tetrodotoxin poisoning. But by that time, his kidneys were already too badly damaged.
As soon as it was found out that the victim and his grandmother ate the blowfish, the doctors went to see his grandmother. Fortunately, her condition was not a cause for concern, she only had temporary intestinal problems.
Only chefs with a special diploma can cook fugu.
Now the victim is still in the hospital, in the intensive care unit. According to the doctors, he was still lucky, because the poison tetrodotoxin is many times stronger than cyanide.
Nowadays, blowfish venom in China and Japan in small doses is also used in medicine, but still very rarely, since its properties have just begun to be studied.
