He was sedated and intubated. That's correct, yes, So in an induced coma.
He was on a breathing machine, so on life support ventilation with the tube bown into his windpipe through his mouth and receiving medication to assist his comfort. During that time.
It was a cold morning in more Well today and inside the La Troe Valley Law Courts, Crown Prosecutor Sarah Lenthal asked an intensive care doctor about the condition of the guests at that deadly mushroom lunch.
Now we have been discussing his treatment on thirty one July. How is Donald Patterson's condition? By the next day, one August.
He continued to deteriorate despite very aggressive treatment. Really, the measures that we were observing, both clinically and on investigations, we're moving in the wrong direction. We were very, very worried about his progress. He was getting worse.
A week that had been about technical evidence ended on a human note, and there to hear it. Sitting quietly in court was Ian Wilkinson, the guest who lost his wife to deathcap mushroom poisoning. I'm Brooke greebt Craig, and this is the mushroom cook It's the end of week four of Aaron Patterson's murder trial, and once again I'm joined by my colleague, court reporter Laura PLASSELLA.
Happy as always to be here with you, Brooke, but it seems like our makeshift podcast studio is unhappy with us. We're having a technical difficulty or two today, but we're soldiering on, Yes we are.
We had a super short day in court today. We only heard from one witness and that was doctor Stephen Warrelowe, whose words you heard at the top of the episode. He's an intensive care specialist at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, and he told the jury that he treated don Gale Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather and her husband Ian Wilkinson while they were in hospital in the days after that deadly lunch.
And as you already mentioned, brook Ian was sitting in court today listening to this evidence, and this was evidence about the final days of his wife's life and also evidence about how he battled to survive and ultimately recovered from toxic mushroom poisoning. After giving evidence in the second week of the trial, Ian has actually been sitting in court most days and he's been surrounded by other family members. So the doctor first gave evidence about Don, so let's
begin with him. Sounds like a plan. Doctor Warlow told the jury that both Don and Gail arrived at the Austin Hospital on July thirty one after they were treated at Dandy Nong Hospital. He said after Don arrived, he had been diagnosed with acute liver failure and was pretty quickly sedated and intubated. The Austin Hospital is the state's
liver transplant service. He said that was the reason why all of these guests came to the hospital because they were in the best place to receive treatment relating to the liver. The doctors considered the cause of his liver failure as well as the other guests to be Amanita mushroom poisoning, so this is essentially toxic mushroom poisoning. But doctor Warrelo said that investigations still needed to be made
to rule out any other possible causes. He said this involved blood tests, imaging, ultrasounds, and even some tests for some specific viruses so they could just make sure there was no other cause for this liver failure.
The jury heard that eventually Don had to undergo a liver transplant.
Yes, that's right, doctor Warrelo said that despite intensive treatments, Don continued to deteriorate and that the only possibility of saving his life was through a liver transplant. Crown prosecutor said, O Lenthal, who you heard from at the top of the episode, asked doctor Warlow where the Don's condition improved after the liver transplant, but he replied no, he got relentlessly worse. He then told the court that doctors at the Austin Hospital had no other treatments to offer Don.
He was dying and sadly, Don passed away on August five, exactly one week after the lunch. Now let's move on to Gail Patterson. What did the doctor say about her?
So Gail arrived again alongside her husband on July thirty one, and he described how she was very critically ill when she was admitted by August two. He said her liver was essentially not working at all and she was in a state of advanced shock due to multiple organ failure. The court heard that the same sort of investigations that were undertaken for Don were also done for her, but the doctors again concluded that the cause of her organ failure was toxic mushroom poisoning.
And Gail didn't undergo a liver transplant, did she No.
Doctor Warrelo said that all of the specialists came together to have a conversation around the best course of treatment for Gail, but it was determined that she was too sick to undergo such a complex surgery.
And that's something similar that happened to her sister, Heather Wilkinson, right, that's right. The sisters had a very similar decline while they were in the Austin hospital. Heather arrived one day after Gail on August one with her husband Ian, and doctor Warrelo said that by August two, she was also rapidly deteriorating. The court heard that the specialists treating Heather ultimately concluded that her condition was not survivable. She died on the same day as her sister, on August four,
and that was one day before gone. Finally the doctor spoke about Ian.
So after arriving at the Austin Hospital, doctor Warrelo said Ian was showing signs of advanced multiple organ failure just like the other guests. He was extremely unwell, he said, and something called a plasma exchange was commenced on August three. Ian was administered a raft of treatments. These included a drug called NAK which is to protect the liver, as well as activated charcoal and syllibin, which are targeted medications for people who are suffering from deathcap mushroom poisoning.
But the court heard that Ian slowly started to improve.
That's right, and it seemed like this was almost out of nowhere. On August four, he was still declining, but by the next day doctor Warrelo said that there was some slow and important improvement. He told the court that it was slow because Ian was coming from a situation of extreme critical illness.
The jury heard that Ian was discharged from the ICU on August twenty one, and eventually he returned home in September.
Miss Lenthal had one final question for doctor Warlow about Ian. These are their words, it's not their voices.
How close did Ian Wilkinson come to dying?
We thought he was going to die. He was very close.
After Miss Lenthal asked doctor Warlow about all the lunch guests, there were some questions around amanita mushroom poisoning. Generally, the doctor walked the jury through the effects this poisoning has on the body and he said that towards the end it can be a relentlessly progressive and quite frightening rapid deterioration into multiple organ failure, were the body's different organ systems essentially shut down and the patient is at a very high risk of dying.
After the doctor was done giving his evidence, Digital forensic Officer Sharman fox Henry made a quick return to the stand. That's right.
It was a very very brief appearance by mister fox Henry and it was to complete his evidence. In chief. One of the other Crown prosecutors, Jane Warren, returned mister fox Henry to the topic. They were talking about, Yesda being one of the Samsung mobile phones that was seized by police during the search warrant on August five. Our listeners may remember that yesterday mister fox Henry confirmed that a number of factory resets were conducted on this device.
I will just clarify at this point that the dates of the factory resets were February twelve, August two, August five, and August six of twenty twenty three. August five was the date of the search warrant, and August six was the following day after he was done.
Justice Christopher Bill apologized to the jury. He said, sorry, it has been a bitsy kind of day, but you may think on a Friday it's not all bad news.
Yes, the jury got a very early finish today, but they will be back on Monday to continue hearing evidence, and so will we. To stay up to date on all the latest on this case, go to the mushroomcook dot com dot au and stay tuned for our subscriber ever Sewed on Sunday with veteran crime reporter Anthony Dowsling