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A man died after he fell, seriously injuring himself, while picking mushrooms in Shiojiri, Nagano Prefecture, on Wednesday afternoon, police said. The man suffered head injuries and was taken to hospital by helicopter where he died about five hours later.
Since August, 11 people have died and six others have been injured while picking mushrooms on mountain slopes in Nagano Prefecture, Fuji TV reported.
In the latest case, Shigeya Komatsu, 62, a local farmer, fell about 100 meters down a mountain forest slope. According to the police, he had gone mushroom picking with a male relative, and lost his footing.
Autumn is peak mushroom season and authorities are urging people to take care. They advise mushroom pickers not to go up into the mountains alone and to especially avoid steep slopes where the mushrooms are most prolific. They also suggest people to grab onto bamboo stalks if they lose their balance.
© Japan Today
8 Comments
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smithinjapan
Hawkeye: "Shrooms can be deadly if not properly identified."
Sadly, these people aren't even getting to the stage where they realise too late they've misidentified -- they are dying in the actual picking process, not choosing which to pick.
Do the hustle
Wow! By the headline, I thought he had died from eating them.
spektral
@Hawkeye for a minute I thought the news would be related to misidentified mushroom poisoning...
Hawkeye
Shrooms can be deadly if not properly identified. Back in the day we double checked the variety, washed, chopped, boiled, drained then mixed in some honey (a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down) and settled in for a weekend of twilight zone episodes. Lol but seriously mushroom picking is no task that is easy.
Bintaro
That's more than the number of death from bear attack in the last 6 years.
Mushrooms bears
Cricky
Latest mushroom picking fatality. Had no idea picking mushroom was so dangerous .