The family of a man who died after eating a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder has now spoken out after learning that he was the first fatality linked to a multi-state E. coli outbreak.
James Charles Smith Jr, who goes by JC, was a frequent visitor of the Golden Arches near the Grand Junction, Colorado, home he shared with his wife, Doris.
The elderly couple, who had just celebrated their platinum wedding anniversary, would always order the same item on the menu: a Quarter Pounder.
But, after one such visit in late September, Smith fell ill.
“My mother had been up all night. He had been in the bathroom all night and he had the bloody diarrhea and he was so weak,” Smith’s daughter Debbie Bonnell told CBS News on Friday. “When I got here he was so weak he couldn’t walk.”
He was hospitalized for four days with E. coli O157:H7.
At the time, the source of the outbreak wasn’t clear and so, when he had recovered, Smith and Doris went back to McDonald’s and ordered themselves another Quarter Pounder each.
The Smiths ordered the same burger, but Doris made one small adjustment: she removed her onions.
“I took mine off and gave mine to him,” Doris told CBS. “I feel guilty now because I gave him some onions.”
This time, his symptoms returned far more aggressively.
“I would hold his hand and pray and tell him to try and rest, ‘We are here with you’ and ‘We are getting help for you,’” his daughter said.
On October 20, the 88-year-old former firefighter passed away due to complications with E. coli.
“All he wanted to do was enjoy a hamburger with his wife,” Smith’s daughter Debbie Bonnell told CBS News on Friday.
“He put his trust in these restaurants, and all we really want is our dad back. We watched my daddy have excruciating pain for many days – thrashing his arms and legs around. It was very hard.”
Smith is one of 90 people across 13 states infected in an E. coli outbreak linked to onions on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers, according to the latest update from the Food and Drug Administration. Colorado is one of the worst impacted states, the agency said.
While the 88-year-old is the sole fatality, at least 27 people have been hospitalized and two developed Hemolytic–uremic syndrome (HUS), a rare but serious complication from E. Coli that can cause kidney failure, according to the FDA.
It is not clear if Smith developed HUS.
Health officials reported the outbreak to the public two days after Smith’s death.
FDA investigators now believe slivered yellow onions served in the Quarter Pounders to be the source of the E. coli outbreak.
The onions, which came from the Taylor Farms distribution facility in Colorado Springs, have been recalled from affected McDonald’s locations.
Smith wasn’t the only Colorado resident to fall ill after visiting the fast food chain in the state.
Kamberlyn Bowler, 15, also of Grand Junction, was flown 250 miles to a hospital near Denver in mid-October after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounders three times in recent weeks.
Bowler ended up needing dialysis for 10 days to save her kidneys.
The Bowler family is now looking to sue McDonald’s.
The Smiths said they are just focusing on mourning the father, grandfather, great-grandfather and husband.
Smith’s son Jim told CBS his father was taken too soon.
“We still had lots of plans,” he said, adding: “All and all, my dad was a loving person. He was compassionate. If he needed to be stern, you didn’t want to be on that side.”
Smith was laid to rest on Tuesday afternoon at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado, according to the Snyder Memorial and Funeral Home.
The Independent has contacted McDonald’s and Taylor Farms for comment about Smith’s death.
