Girl almost dies from E. coli after helping dad slaughter deer
Demonstrating once again that dangerous E. coli like O157:H7 exist in all ruminants, 7-year-old April Lambert of Beckley, West Virginia underwent a horrific yet typical encounter with E. coli as her kidneys shut down and doctors scrambled to save her life.
The Charleston Daily Mail reports that April’s father, Red, had shot a deer the Friday after Thanksgiving and she helped him skin it and prepare bigger cuts to send off to a local butcher, but Red cut the tenderloin himself.
April placed the pieces of meat into freezer bags, handling the meat with her hands.
The family and the doctors concluded that April likely hadn't washed her hands afterward as well as she could have. In fact, April recalls she may have rinsed them and not used soap.
Dr. Amana Nasir, a West Virginia University pediatric gastroenterologist who was on the team that treated April in Charleston said she and fellow doctors have treated four similar cases traced to handling of deer meat, adding,
"Deer harbor infection - it's estimated that 17 percent of the whitetail population harbors E.coli.”
The natural reservoirs for E. coli O157:H7 and other verotoxigenic E. coli is the intestines of all ruminants, including cattle -- grass or grain-fed -- sheep, goats, deer and elk.
If you bag a deer, don't slaughter it in a restaurant kitchen
The manager of Stromboli Pizza in Allentown says a customer saw one of the restaurant cooks carving up a deer Tuesday. John Okumus says the venison wasn't intended for the store. He says he shot a doe during a hunt and left the carcass in the store's kitchen for pickup by a friend.
Okumus says a customer complained to the city health department after seeing a cook mistakenly butcher the deer.
The department investigated the incident but did not issue a citation.
There are reasons animals are slaughtered in slaughterhouses. See the infosheet below.
Staff butchering deer leads to closure of Chinese restaurant
“In general, you can’t have a dead animal in a food services establishment.”
That’s the advice from Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Anthony J. Billittier IV after a dead deer was discovered being butchered in a restaurant.
The Buffalo News in New York reports the discovery was made after a tipster called the Health Department.
A health inspector was quickly sent to the restaurant, which was immediately closed. A hearing on the matter is expected to be held early next week.
Officials don’t know whether the dead deer at China King, 5999 South Park Ave., had been hunted or if it was road kill.
Summer sausage is tasty, maggots and all
I grew up in a deer hunting family, and although my own deer hunting career started and ended when I was 13, I was so used to eating venison that beef tasted weird. I still remember one deer my family butchered at home, and my brother chased me around the house with an eyeball. We packaged and marked the cuts, but they stayed in our family freezer. Perhaps we had some guests over for dinner or gave some to a friend at church, but if anyone got sick, it was us. In Omaha, apparently, things are run differently. Deer processor and poacher extraordinaire Jack McClanahan was finally put out of the summer sausage business.
According to the Omaha World-Herald McClanahan processed and sold tons of tainted summer sausage, much of it from poached deer. McClanahan told federal undercover agents that he sometimes shot deer at night with a rifle from the bathroom window of his home in Omaha's Ponca Hills and then would retrieve the carcasses in the morning. He baited the deer with corn, used a spotlight to blind them, and then shot.
McClanahan is a retired butcher who sold summer sausage in 5-pound casings at $3.50 a pound. He also made salami, jerky and snack sticks, and authorities estimated annual production at about 10,000 pounds.
Mark Webb, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent, said mouse droppings, maggots, deer carcasses, dried blood, deer hair and other contaminants littered the commercial-grade meat processing equipment that filled McClanahan's three-car garage. There was no running water for cleaning. When wildlife agents seized the equipment and cleaned it with hot water and soap at a carwash, they discovered two lead bullets the size of a man's thumb lodged in the grinder. The blade had been shaving lead into the meat.
The butcher-poacher was fined $10,000 and sentenced to three years of probation Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
My family and most deer hunters I have known have a strong conservationist ethic. I was raised to respect wildlife and have a deep appreciation for nature. McClanahan, and other poachers, are appalling, but making humans sick and putting their lives at risk with filthy processing conditions is even more disgusting.
