DENVER (KDVR) — While Quarter Pounders, sans onions, are now back on the menu for McDonald’s after a deadly and widespread E. coli outbreak, lawsuits continue to develop against the fast food giant.
On Monday, Ron Simon & Associates announced that it has been retained to represent 33 people who believe they were victims of the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder E. coli outbreak. One of those clients is 15-year-old Kamberlyn Bowler from Grand Junction, Colorado, who ate Quarter Pounders with extra pickles three times at the end of September and early October, according to the lawyers.
The lawyers said the 15-year-old girl contracted gastrointestinal illness symptoms on Oct. 8, including “bloody diarrhea and intense abdomen and kidney pain.” On Oct. 11, she went to the hospitals where they said she developed “hemolytic uremic syndrome,” which can be a complication of E. coli food poisoning. HUS is a blood disorder characterized by kidney injury and low platelet counts, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Bowler received dialysis for 10 days in an urgent effort to save her kidneys.
“This is a central line and it’s for my dialysis and blood transfusions that I get every, almost every other day,” Kamberlyn said on a Zoom call from her hospital room in Aurora.
She is still hospitalized with 24-hour care, Ron Simon & Associates said. “The longer a young person is on dialysis, the more difficult their medical future will likely be.”
The 15-year-old is aware of the potential, too.
“I could still have, like, kidney problems for the rest of my life,” she said.
The teenager is one 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 fallen ill and one person died. Federal health officials have said that slivered onions used on the burgers are a likely source of the outbreak.
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 halftime and while watching a school softball game.
She started feeling sick in the days after and experienced 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 crap.”
Kamberlyn’s mother, Brittany Randall, who works as a jail guard, has three older children and thought that her young 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.
The ordeal left her mother worried about her daughter’s health and shaken at the idea 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 be eating something that’s healthy and for it to be broken,” said Randall.
E. coli bacteria cause a range of infections, but some strains, such as those that produce Shiga toxin, can cause serious illness and kidney damage, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The hospital noted that groups most at risk for the illness include newborns and young children, as well as people over the age of 65 or people with weakened immune systems.
On Sunday, the Colorado Department of Agriculture announced that it had analyzed dozens of samples of beef patties used in Quarter Pounders and said all were negative for E. coli. The CDA said it does not anticipate receiving more beef samples in this case.
However, the company said it is obtaining a new supplier for beef patties out of an abundance of caution and has stopped sourcing onions from a California producer, Taylor Farms, which has a Colorado Springs distribution facility.
Concerns remain about the slivered onions used on the burger. On Sunday, McDonald’s said it would be rolling the Quarter Pounder back out to affected locations in Colorado, Wyoming and Kansas, as well as portions of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah.
The restaurant said Sunday that the issue appears to be “contained to a particular ingredient and geography, and we remain very confident that any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been removed from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald’s restaurants.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it usually takes three to four weeks to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak, and the true number of sick people related to the outbreak “is likely much higher than the number reported.” McDonald’s echoed that on Sunday, saying with heightened awareness, more people could also get tested when they otherwise would not.
McDonald’s response to the outbreak is posted on the company’s website highlighting its safety protocols including daily temperature checks, storage and cooking guidelines and hourly handwashing requirements.
Meanwhile, the Bowlers are still at Children’s Hospital Colorado, hoping for the best.
McDonald’s has not yet responded to a request by Nexstar’s KDVR for a response to the lawsuit.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.