On the afternoon of April 9, information from Lang Son Provincial General Hospital said that the Emergency Department of the hospital had just received two patients with severe poisoning due to eating Gelsemium elegans.
One patient is Mr. H.V. T., 43 years old, Tay people, residing in Hoang Van Thu commune. When admitted to the hospital, Mr. T. was in a coma, continuous whole-body convulsions, loss of personal activity control, life-threatening risk.
Through examination and testing, doctors determined that this was a severe acute poisoning case.
According to family members, at noon on April 8, Mr. T. went to a neighbor's house to help and stayed to eat rice. During the meal, there was a soup cooked from water spinach picked in the forest. After the meal, Mr. T. and the homeowner both showed symptoms of convulsions and coma, so they were taken to the emergency room.
In addition to these two people, there were two other people during the meal who had abdominal pain and nausea, including a young child.
Checking the remaining vegetables at home, functional agencies discovered that they were mixed with Gelsemium elegans - a toxic plant that often grows naturally in the northern mountainous provinces.
According to hospital leaders, thanks to timely emergency care, the two patients have passed the critical condition, returned to consciousness, and their current test scores are normal.
The hospital recommends that people be cautious when picking wild vegetables, need to clearly recognize each type of plant to avoid confusion. Gelsemium elegans has very high toxicity, poisoning often progresses quickly, severely and easily leads to death if not treated promptly.
Doctors said that the victim of Gelsemium elegans poisoning may die within the first hour to 6 hours. When suspecting someone has eaten Gelsemium elegans, if the victim is still conscious, it is necessary to induce vomiting early and quickly take them to the nearest medical facility for emergency treatment.
