Sponsel’s Minnesota Harvest Petting Zoo near Jordan, Minnesota, was temporarily shut down after preliminary tests by the state health department found that a 3-year-old boy’s E. coli infection may have been caused by contact at the zoo.
Pritzker Olsen Attorneys is investigating whether others may have contracted E. coli O157: H7 at the petting zoo, which is 12 miles south of Shakopee and part of an attraction that also includes an apple orchard. The orchard at Sponsel’s Minnesota Harvest is not associated with this potential E. coli outbreak.
Our firm is representing the toddler. He appears to have contracted the disease from a llama at the petting zoo. The child spent 11 days this month in a Twin Cities hospital fighting hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a life-threatening complication of an E. coli infection. According to a recent study, 3 percent of E. coli HUS cases end in death when involving a child under 5 years old.
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) found a strain of E. coli O157:H7 in the feces of a llama at the petting zoo that genetically matched the strain of E. coli O157:H7 that sickened the 3-year-old.
E. coli O157:H7 is one of the most common and most dangerous kinds of intestinal disease agents associated with animal contact. Pritzker Olsen practices extensively in cases dealing with the pathogenic bacteria and currently represents victims of an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak at the 2009 National Western Stock Show in Denver.
“Despite state guidelines recommending sanitation measures to ensure the safety of visitors to petting zoos, it appears the operator of this facility did not follow all of these guidelines,” stated Attorney Fred Pritzker. “The Minnesota Department of Health regularly sends these guidelines to petting zoos. This outbreak might have been prevented if this business had put safety first.”
For a free consultation with an attorney regarding your E. coli poisoning case, please call 612-338-0202, call 1-888-377-8900 (toll free) or submit our online form.
