Potluck season -- food safety!

To go down in history as "The Hayride to Hell"

I didn't attend our local Halloween party last night....just got back from a conference in Denver, and I was exhausted. A neighbor started banging on my door late last night, we have no phone lines or cell service up here, and I'm a local volunteer firefighter/medical responder and have a sheriff's dept. radio to talk directly to 911 dispatch, which I called.

Sounds like they had a hay ride behind the tractor, then returned for a scrumptious pot luck dinner. When I arrived, an hour and a half after they ate dinner, I found people sprawled all over the house and outside, puking their guts out and moaning. The end result was 3 ambulances, over 20 EMTs and firefighters to triage, direct traffic, and get 8 people to the hospital, the rest driven home as it was determined they were too sick to drive home themselves.

Everyone is OK this morning, with one elderly gent still hospitalized for observation.

We'll never know what dish caused this mass casualty incident......but for starters, if you are having a potluck:

-Be wary of cross contamination on cutting boards -- for example raw meat vs. vegetables.
-If you make pasta or potato salad, COOL THE PASTA OR POTATOES before adding other ingredients.
-Everything cold should be refrigerated and only brought out for serving, then promptly returned to the fridge; everything hot should be refrigerated right after serving.
-Wash hands frequently, AND wash raw vegetables before cutting.

There's more info out there:
http://fycs.ifas.ufl.edu/news/2007/potluck.htm
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Cooking_for_Groups.pdf

Halloween should be FUN scary. This incident was REALLY scary!
Be careful out there.
DANBOB

Danbob,

Very good advice on food safety, one of the companies I work with selling color coded cut resistant gloves to prevent cross contaminant of food and cutting board and sheets. Keeping it out of the 41 to 150 deg. range is also critical. Either keep it cold or keep it hot, lukewarm will kill you or make you want to die.

Having seen and being a victim of the stomach bug I know it's not fun but 1 1/2 hours is awfully quick to claim food poisoning, it did a little research to refresh the noggin and found info that says 6 hours or more.


Salmonella, most notoriously spread via raw eggs, develops from 6 to 72 hours after exposure. Symptoms include severe diarrhea, fever and chills, vomiting, and abdominal cramps and usually last from three to five days. Staphylococcal food poisoning is actually caused by the potent toxins that they produce. Typical sources are unrefrigerated ham, poultry, potato or egg salad, and custards. Carriers and food handlers with staphylococcal skin infections are mainly responsible for the spread of staphylococcus toxin poisoning. The onset of symptoms from such poisoning (similar to those of Salmonella infection) occurs abruptly one to six hours after ingestion of the polluted food. The illness lasts from 24 to 48 hours; fatalities are rare.