Teen Battles Kidney Failure After Eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounders

A 15-year-old high school student is hospitalized with severe complications of food poisoning after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers three times in the weeks before a deadly E. coli outbreak was discovered.

Kamberlyn Bowler of Grand Junction, Colorado, had to be flown 250 miles to a hospital near Denver in mid-October, where she received dialysis for 10 days in an urgent attempt to save her kidneys.

She is one of at least 75 people sickened and 22 hospitalized in the outbreak, tentatively traced to contaminated onions. In Mesa County, where Kamberlyn lives, 11 people have become ill and one person has died. Federal health officials have said so chopped onions used on burgers is a likely source of the outbreak.

That ordeal left Kamberlyn’s mother, Brittany Randall, concerned for her daughter’s health and appalled at the thought that a burger could potentially cause so much harm.

“It’s pretty scary to know that we put so much faith and trust that we’re going to eat something that’s healthy and it’s going to be ruined,” Randall said.

She moves to sue the fast food chain after Kamberlyn becomes infected The E. coli O157:H7 bacteria confirmed in the outbreak.

These bacteria produce a dangerous toxin that can cause a serious kidney disease complication known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, according to medical experts. Many children are hospitalized for weeks, and some go on to require kidney transplants, said Dr. Myda Khalid, a kidney specialist at Riley Hospital for Children in Indiana, who is not involved in Kamberlyn’s care.

“Time is critical,” Khalid said. “We have to get through this window, and we have to get through it very carefully,” she said.

The condition can be fatal, but most children eventually recover, she said.

Kamberlyn said she ate McDonald’s Quarter Pounders with cheese, extra pickles — and onions — three times between Sept. 27 and Oct. 8. She said the burgers were easy to grab during a football break and while watching a softball game at school.

She began to feel ill in the following days, experiencing fever, vomiting, diarrhea and painful stomach cramps.

“I couldn’t get out of bed,” she recalled. “I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink. I was surviving on Popsicles. I felt like shit.”

Randall, who works as a prison guard, has three older children and thought her little daughter might just have the flu. But when Kamberlyn texted to say she had blood in her stool and urine and was vomiting blood, Randall said she knew it was serious.

On October 11, Kamberlyn went to a hospital in Grand Junction. The doctors said she probably had a stomach bug. She was sent home with instructions to stay hydrated. On October 17, she was not feeling any better and returned to the emergency room. That time, tests showed Kamberlyn had acute kidney failure, her mother said. She was flown to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, near Denver, where she remained Tuesday.

Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s chairman, president and CEO, apologized for the outburst Tuesday on a conference call with investors.

“Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our customers,” Kempczinksi said. “The recent spate of E. coli cases is deeply concerning, and it has been frightening for us to hear reports of how this has affected our customers.”

Randall said her daughter’s future health — and medical costs — are uncertain.

“Hospital bills are going up,” she said. “And I’m a single mom, and I just don’t know that I can necessarily afford everything that comes after all of this. And I don’t know what the future looks like either.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. AP is solely responsible for all content.