A fatal case of apparent water hemlock poisoning

A 14-y-o North American native boy died 20 h after ingesting "wild carrot". He was gathering edible plants with his family on Canadian Thanksgiving. A sample of the plant he ingested couldn't be positively identified but it contained cicutoxin on chromatography. Bioassay caused death in mice which demonstrated clinical signs similar to water hemlock (Cicuta maculata) poisonings. Cicutoxin could not be demonstrated in postmortem tissue or gastric lavage. The boy's clinical signs and laboratory tests were consistent with other reported cases of this poisoning.