Yes, It's Looking Like The Caterer Did It --She Raised Chicks And Did Business Without A License

Posted on June 26, 2009 by Salmonella Lawyer

If you raise chicks and you are in the catering business, you need to be extra careful not to cross contaminate the food you serve with salmonella from the chicks you keep.

It’s looking like that’s what happened in North Dakota where an unlicensed caterer linked to three separate incidents of salmonella food poisoning that sickened more than 75 people and hospitalized nine turned out to also be a chicken rancher.

On the second and third weekends in June, Aggie Jennings of rural McLean County, North Dakota catered a family reunion in Wilton, and weddings in Washburn and McClusky. At each event, people were poisoned with salmonella.

North Dakota health officials say Ms. Jennings did not have a catering license, an apparent Class B misdemeanor. As for charging her with legal responsibility for the outbreaks, they are first waiting for laboratory reports.

Food samples from one of the weddings, along with swab and water samples from the Jennings’ home are being tested for salmonella bacteria.   Jennings’ kitchen is not separate from her home, which is required for a catering licenses.

Read about the investigation in the Bismarck Tribune. 

Tags: , , ,

Same Caterer In North Dakota May Have Spread Salmonella To Two Events

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Salmonella Attorney

There was a wedding in Washburn and a family reunion in Wilton that will probably be remembered for a long time. Both North Dakota towns are north of Bismarck.  There apparently was a common ingredient at both events--salmonella.  And it was not pretty.

About 40 people got sick, 11 were hospitalized, and two were in intensive care.

Doug Ness told KSYR-TV that he had to take four days off of work from his job as a chiropractor at Active Life Chiropractic in Bismarck last week. "I couldn`t leave my bed," Ness says. " Basically it was bed to bathroom and it wasn`t much fun."

He was just one of many who got sick from salmonella bacteria after eating from the taco bar at his friend`s wedding in Washburn.   "Later than afternoon I`d heard from some of my friends that went to E.R. and they had I.V.s and were given morphine for the pain or discomfort so from there we kind of knew something was going on," Ness says.

Others reported the same symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea after a reunion in Wilton hosted by the same caterer.

"There`s a common caterer but it`s really too soon to identify what`s really happened here," state epidemiologist Kirby Kruger told the television station. "We`re still doing some investigation and we`re still waiting for some results to come back."

Read more about the outbreak in the North Dakota's press release from last Friday.

Tags: ,