The husband of a Montana woman who died after allegedly eating raw mushrooms from a sushi restaurant has renewed his calls for those responsible for her death to be held accountable.
Donna Ventura, 64, spent 12 days in intensive care after being hospitalized with what her husband called normal food poisoning following a lunch at Dave’s Sushi in Bozeman.
Upon admission to the hospital, the woman suffered cardiac arrest and eventually died of liver and kidney failure on April 29, 2023. The disease also damaged her esophagus and trachea, her husband said.
“The thought that she would end up in the intensive care unit just because of her lunch was unreal,” Jon Ventura, 63, the woman’s husband, told local news station KBZK.
The woman’s doctors tried everything to save her life, he said, including obtaining special permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to give her a drug that could combat fungal toxicity. Montana Free Press reported.
In her final days, her husband gave her white paper and red markers to write messages on. Some of those messages included: “I’m not sure I can go on much longer. How are we going to manage? I can’t stand the pain,” he told the outlet.
The last few messages she wrote were to her husband and son, telling them how much she loved them, he continued. Later, the woman refused a feeding tube despite her husband’s resistance, the newspaper reported. At one point, she could no longer breathe on her own and needed a ventilator.
The husband now wears the couple’s fused wedding rings on a chain around his neck.
“I told my wife on her deathbed that one of my jobs would be to hold people accountable for what they had done to her,” he said.
Mr. Ventura has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the restaurant. If he wins damages, he hopes to open a scholarship at Montana State University in his wife’s name.
In July, state and county health officials released a report saying 50 people who ate at the restaurant became ill after eating morels. Another person, 74-year-old William Lewis, died. Three of the 50 people were hospitalized.
Officials were unable to determine which element in the mushrooms caused the reactions. A routine restaurant inspection by county officials found additional violations at the sushi restaurant.
Allegations included unsafe temperatures in a sample of raw fish and dishwasher problems that were fixed the same day. Montana Free Press noted.
Aaron Parker, the owner of Dave’s Sushi, admitted that his restaurant was responsible for the deaths of the people who consumed the food from his restaurant.
“We served the food that caused the illnesses,” he said. “Absolutely.”
