Hospitalized teen who ate Quarter Pounders worried about long-term damage

A 15-year-old western Colorado girl who is suffering from kidney failure after contracting E. coli after eating at McDonald’s says she ate Quarter Pounders three times in the weeks before a deadly outbreak was detected. She is one at least 75 people sickened and 22 hospitalized in the outbreak tentatively traced to contaminated onions. Another western Colorado resident died.
Kamberlyn Bowler lives in Grand Junction but was flown to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora and has been under 24-hour care there for almost two weeks.
The high school student ate the burgers three times between Sept. 27 and Oct. 8, she says, because the burgers were easy to grab while watching her school teams play. She said she started to feel sick and when she texted her mom that she had blood in her stool, urine and was vomiting blood her mom took her to the hospital.
Doctors told her it was a stomach bug. A week later, she was still experiencing a fever, vomiting, diarrhea and painful stomach cramps so she returned to the emergency room. That’s when blood tests showed Bowler had acute kidney failure.
“It hurt to walk. I couldn’t stand up straight because my back was hurting really bad,” she said. “I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink. I was surviving on Popsicles. I felt like crap.”
Bowler received dialysis for 10 days in an urgent effort to save her kidneys at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Now Bowler and her mom Brittany Randall say they’re worried about long-term damage to her body and how much it will cost to recover. Randall said she’s 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.
They have retained a lawyer who is representing a number of other victims. A class action lawsuit has also been filed against the fast food chain.
Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s chairman, president and CEO, apologized for the outbreak 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 hearing reports of how this has impacted our customers has been wrenching for us.”