A festive family Christmas in southern Italy has ended in unimaginable tragedy after a mother and her teenage daughter died within hours of each other from suspected food poisoning.
A Deadly Festive Feast
Antonella Di Ielsi, 50, and her 15-year-old daughter Sara Di Vita passed away over the weekend at Cardarelli hospital in Campobasso. The pair had fallen ill following a meal the family shared on December 23, in the run-up to Christmas. The dinner is reported to have included mushrooms, fish, and various seafood such as mussels.
Both the mother and daughter began suffering from identical symptoms, including severe nausea and acute abdominal pain, in the days after the meal. They were admitted to hospital, where the teenager died at approximately 10:30pm on Saturday evening. Her mother died just a few hours later, on Sunday morning.
Hospital Discharges and a Rapid Decline
In a distressing turn of events, both Di Ielsi and Di Vita were discharged from the hospital twice, on December 25 and 26, before being readmitted on Saturday with dramatically worsening symptoms. Friends of Sara revealed the teenager had been hopeful about her recovery. "She thought the heavy treatment they had given her in the hospital would be enough; she absolutely didn't think her condition could worsen," they told La Repubblica.
The father, Gianni, who also consumed the meal, was airlifted to Rome's Spallanzani Hospital, where he remains in intensive care. The couple's other daughter, aged 18, was taken to a Rome hospital as a precaution but showed no symptoms and is believed not to have eaten the dinner.
Community Anger and Ongoing Investigations
The family are well-known residents of Pietracatella, a small town in the Molise region. The 55-year-old father is an accountant and a former two-term mayor of the town. The close-knit community has been left reeling by the deaths. Mayor Antonio Tommasone declared a day of mourning and cancelled all remaining Christmas celebrations, describing the incident as a "tragedy that leaves us speechless."
The Campobasso Prosecutor's Office has ordered autopsies for Wednesday to determine if the cause of death was food poisoning or a pre-existing intolerance. Initially, doctors suspected gastroenteritis, but as the patients' conditions deteriorated, they began considering more serious possibilities like botulism, listeria, or chemical poisoning.
Dr. Vincenzo Cuzzone, head of intensive care at Cardarelli Hospital, described a "truly rare evolution" leading rapidly to multi-organ failure. Meanwhile, police have collected food samples from the family home, including canned goods and fresh produce, for laboratory testing.
Five people have been placed under investigation as authorities scrutinise medical records and interview hospital staff to understand the sequence of events leading to the deaths. The community's grief is mixed with anger, with many questioning why the victims were sent home twice before their final, fatal admission.
