3 days in the ICU. His organs started failing. He blames this Beaufort restaurant

A South Carolina man flying from Charlotte to Seattle in June started experiencing stomach pains so intense that he was rushed to the emergency room when the flight landed and spent 10 days in the hospital.

Now, in a lawsuit filed Dec. 11 in Beaufort County Court, Oliver Spencer alleges that his suffering was because of a meal at a Mexican restaurant in Beaufort.

According to the suit, Spencer took friends to dinner at Los Hermanos on Robert Smalls Parkway on Wednesday, June 7. He ordered a meal that included pork and a salad.

After hours of suffering — first on June 8, when he required in-flight medical attention, and then at a Seattle hospital, where he was discharged and then readmitted once the excruciating pain returned — Spencer was diagnosed with E. coli, which the suit alleges he contracted from his meal at Los Hermanos.

A woman who answered the phone at Los Hermanos on Thursday said she didn’t know anything about the lawsuit, and declined to refer Island Packet reporters to the owner or manager. She didn’t identify herself.

As a result of the infection, the suit alleges that Spencer spent 10 days in the hospital, three of them in intensive care. Both kidneys and his liver began to shut down, requiring him to be placed on dialysis, the suit says.

The two friends who joined Spencer for dinner at the restaurant also reported suffering stomach cramps and intestinal issues following their meals, according to the suit.

Spencer is still recovering from complications of the incident nearly half a year after the poisoning is alleged to have occurred, the suit says.

Health inspection records of Los Hermanos from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control show the restaurant being inspected four times this summer from June 13 to July 17.

In that time, a number of violations were documented.

The restaurant failed on the first three of the four inspections to store cold food at the proper temperatures. This resulted in progressively lower grades over those inspections, with the restaurant first receiving a low “A,” then a “B,” then a “C” from DHEC due to the repeated infraction, despite otherwise high marks.

Additional issues involving proper utensil storage, facility maintenance, and failure to obtain proper food protection manager certification and provide an employee health policy were also noted.

Los Hermanos did better on its last inspection, getting 100 percent. The most recent report notes that previous cold storage issues have been resolved.

Spencer is claiming negligence, gross negligence and negligence per se against Los Hermanos.

His lawsuit represents only one side of the legal argument.

“We believe that food safety is critically important and our goal is to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else like Oliver,” said his attorney, Derek A. Shoemake of Simmons Law Firm in Columbia.

Spencer is seeking unspecified damages.

Diane Smith of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram contributed to this story.

This story was originally published December 15, 2017 at 6:43 AM with the headline "3 days in the ICU. His organs started failing. He blames this Beaufort restaurant."