Coroner: Woman died from poison mushrooms

NEWPORT, England, March 19 (UPI) -- A woman died of eating poisonous mushrooms her niece found growing wild at a botanical garden in southern England, a coroner has found.

John Matthews, coroner for the Isle of Wight, released a verdict Thursday that Amphon Tuckey's death was an accident, The Times of London reported.

Both Tuckey and her niece, Kannika "Pern" Tuckey, ate the mushrooms, later identified as amanita phalloides, but the younger woman recovered after treatment at a London hospital.

A. phalloides, commonly known as the death cap and the destroying angel, is one of the most dangerous mushrooms known. It resembles several edible species.

Pern Tuckey testified she and her husband were worried about the mushrooms. But she was reassured when her aunt ate a small quantity and felt no ill effects, the report said.

Tuckey, after she became sick, told paramedics and her doctor she had eaten raw sausage -- apparently because her husband had warned her about eating mushrooms and she was afraid he would be angry. Matthews called the lie "unfortunate."

"But even if they had been made aware right from the beginning that she had eaten fatal mushrooms, the amount she had ingested meant she would have inevitably died," he concluded.