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Lavinia Kelly: California Woman Hospitalized For Weeks After Putting Gas Station Nacho Cheese On Her Doritos

By Louis Babcock
Published on: 08:20 PST, May 18, 2017

According to the Sacramento Bee, Lavinia Kelly has been in the hospital for the last few weeks with botulism after she ate Doritos that she covered with nacho cheese dispensed from a gas station. Lavinia has been so sick, she has not been able to talk or breath on her own since her admission.

The Valley Oak Food and Fuel is the gas station in Sacramento and Lavinia is not the first person to be diagnosed with botulism after eating food from there. In fact, health officials from Sacramento County claim that five other people have been diagnosed with botulism and they can be tied to Valley Oak Food and Fuel. Besides those other five cases, four more are being investigated, and all nine are hospitalized. It is believed that the nacho cheese sauce is the common food eaten among all the victims is where the botulism is coming from.

According to Ricky Torres, Lavinia’s boyfriend, Lavinia was on her way home from work on April 21, when she stopped at the Valley Oak Food and Fuel gas station to grab a quick bite to eat. Lavinia grabbed a bag of Doritos and decided to make them cheesier by pouring some of the gas station’s nacho cheese over them.

A few hours after eating the nacho cheese covered Doritos, Lavinia began to show signs of illness. Not feeling better the next morning, she decided to seek medical attention at the Sutter Medical Center. Lavinia was sent home shortly after being evaluated. Torres stated that later that evening he had to take Lavinia to the emergency room due to her struggling to breathe and vomiting. Lavinia was admitted to the ICU at the hospital where she had a breathing tube inserted to stabilize her breathing. Torres commented on her condition.

“We’re just trying to figure out what happened. Now I spend most of time at the hospital, I’m just trying to get answers. … She’s been doing good, and we just don’t understand why this happened over a bag of chips and nacho cheese. Really? How does that happen? (The gas station) should have been more aware. They’re handling that stuff every day. I know they probably didn’t make the cheese per se, but they handle that stuff in the store.”

Due to the multiple botulism cases linked to Valley Oak Food and Fuel, Sacramento health officials suspended the gas station’s ability to serve food. Employees of the gas station refused to comment on the food poisoning problems.

A lawsuit has been filed against the Sacramento gas station where Lavinia acquired and consumed the nacho cheese. Bruce Clark, the attorney working on Lavinia’s lawsuit, commented on the case.

“Only human mistakes create the environment for botulinum toxin to form. We will use the lawsuit to learn more about the source of the food product that was contaminated. The source of the food product may be unrelated to the gas station; it could be a commercially made, pre-packaged item. That’s an essential question.”

Clark declined to comment on the amount of money that Lavinia and her family are seeking from the lawsuit. Clark did say, “They’re acquiring astounding medical bills.”

Sacramento health officials are telling to public to seek medical attention if they have eaten at the Valley Oak Food and Fuel gas station between April 23 to May 5 and are experiencing any symptoms.

[Featured Image by sfam_photo/Shutterstock]

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