Matt Jackson was riding an electric bike through Bordeaux wine country when he started feeling strange. Nine days later, he's on a breathing machine in a French intensive care unit, unable to open his eyes, communicating only via notes on a whiteboard —- and infected with botulism.
Jackson was among the first of a dozen people who ate preserved sardines in a Bordeaux wine bar last week to be hospitalized with what French authorities believe is the rare and potentially fatal illness.Officials issued an appeal around France and beyond to find others who might have eaten the suspicious sardines and might be at risk. Among those sickened have been visitors from the U.S., Ireland, Canada, Germany and Spain, according to the regional health authority ARS.
The next morning, they took a wine-tasting trip to nearby Saint-Emilion."We're on e-bikes riding to the vineyards, and around 10 a.m. Matt just said he didn't feel very well,'' she said."His abilities were going down quickly," she told The Associated Press on Thursday from Bordeaux. As he spoke,"it was very hard to understand. And his mouth was so unbelievably dry, to the point where he couldn't swallow water.
Benner suspected botulism but doctors were at first skeptical. It took days to confirm a link to the sardines, and to get them both access to anti-toxins for a disease that French hospitals encounter infrequently. France records only 10 to 20 cases of botulism nationwide per year.
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