A nurse claims she was left vomiting up blood after eating a pizza at a Gino D'Acampo restaurant. Amanda Hughes and her husband Paul, 47, booked a meal at the venue to celebrate their wedding anniversary with their son Harry, 11, along with a night at the Innside by Melia hotel.
But the couple's celebrations soon turned into a nightmare when Amanda, who suffers from coeliac disease, had to be taken from her hotel room to A&E. The 48-year-old, from Southport, said she ordered from the restaurant's gluten-free menu but believes she was given a normal pizza that caused her to vomit blood, the Liverpool Echo reports.
Around one in 100 people suffer from coeliac disease, which is a condition where your immune system attacks your own tissues when you eat gluten. Sufferers of the disease have to keep a close eye on what they eat as many everyday foods such as pasta, pizza, bread and cakes are dangerous for them to eat.
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Amanda said she contacted the Liverpool restaurant about the incident, which happened on April 23 and was told an investigation would be carried out. But she claims she has heard nothing for several months and has now decided to come forward to warn others.
Amanda said: "We booked into the restaurant - I think it was about half five-six [o'clock] we booked and the waiter was fantastic. He sat with me and spoke to me about coeliac disease, he understood everything about it. He told me about their processes and I felt really safe."
Amanda ordered her food from the gluten-free menu at the restaurant and chose asparagus with pecorino to start, a gluten free pizza with Italian sausage for her main course and amaretto panna cotta for dessert. She said: "Someone else brought my pizza to me, not my waiter, then I had my pudding.
"Afterwards we went for a little walk just down Old Hall Street. We got to the bottom [of the road] and I said to my husband 'I don't feel very well'.
"I knew straight away because you get these feelings within your body - you just know when you've been glutened. I just knew I was going to be sick, that's the first thing that happens you see, you know the food you've eaten hasn't absorbed."
Amanda decided to go back to her hotel room after falling ill, where things went from bad to worse. She said: "I just started with projectile vomiting which is a symptom of being glutened. It carried on and on - this was about 7pm - and at around 11 o'clock I was vomiting blood and I asked my husband to call an ambulance for me."
Amanda was taken in an ambulance from the hotel to A&E at the Royal Liverpool Hospital where she spent the night. The 48-year-old said she was forced to take two weeks off work after she was left suffering from severe stomach pains and fatigue and she still hasn't recovered since then.
She said: "It feels like to me, I think they gave me a normal pizza but I can't prove that." After she told doctors what had happened and they went through her medical history in A&E, Amanda said: "They did say from what I told them it was most probably a gluten reaction but they couldn't rule out food poisoning because my white blood cells were high.
"If it was someone with a peanut allergy they would have been dead. I've worked in intensive care for 17 years so I've seen this sort of thing - I've seen people with allergies. It's not something to take lightly, it's a serious issue. It ruined my night and I've been unwell ever since."
After the Echo contacted the restaurant this week, Amanda said she received a phone call from them to say they would look into what happened and contact her with the outcome of their investigation on Friday. She said: "I feel really let down and I will never go to any of Gino D'Acampo's restaurants.
"It's actually made me anxious about going to other places that do gluten free unless I know that restaurant. I ordered off a gluten free menu. There should be processes to make sure it remains gluten free."
Gino D'Acampo restaurants were contacted for comment.
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