AUSTIN, Texas (CN) - A man says in a federal lawsuit that he developed a severe infection and nearly died after consuming Blue Bell ice cream products contaminated with listeria.
David Phillip Shockley sued Blue Bell Creameries on Tuesday, alleging claims for strict product liability, negligence, breach of warranties and violations of state and federal laws regarding food safety.
According to the complaint, as early as 2010 Blue Bell produced its ice cream at facilities "infested with Listeria monocytogenes and as a result, produced ice cream products contaminated with the deadly pathogen."
The complaint notes that Listeria monocytogenes "tends to thrive in food processing environments," that it can grow slowly on foods in a refrigerator, and that freezing "has very little detrimental effect on the organism."
As a result, ready-to-eat processed foods like ice cream are especially susceptible to listeria contamination, the plaintiff says.
Listeriosis is a life-threatening infection that occurs when people eat food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The people most at risk for listeriosis are pregnant women and their newborns, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems, according to the CDC.
Shockley says he was exposed to the contaminated Blue Bell products in 2013 at age 31, while working in Houston as a facility administrator at a retirement community.
Shockley "regularly consumed single-serving Blue Bell ice cream products" as well as other Blue Bell ice cream products while at work, according to the complaint. He says that he previously suffered from ulcerative colitis, which made him "particularly vulnerable to food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes."
In October 2013, Shockley developed a severe headache with nausea and had to seek emergency treatment. He was discharged to go home by emergency personnel but lost consciousness several hours later.
Shockley's friends and colleagues found him at home to be "unresponsive, pale, febrile, and in clear respiratory distress," the complaint says.
Shockley was admitted into intensive care at the hospital, was on artificial respiration for five days, and did not regain consciousness until six days later.
When Shockley woke up, he could not walk, talk, swallow or move much of his body, according to the complaint.
Doctors later performed a spinal tap and tested Shockley's cerebrospinal fluid, which resulted in a diagnosis of Listeria meningitis with encephalitis. He was later released from ICU to an inpatient rehabilitation program.
He remained "unable to speak or walk and required around-the-clock assistance," the complaint says. From rehab he returned to his childhood home in Maryland to live with his parents, who care for him to this day.
Shockley cannot work, and "there is no cure or therapy other than continued physical therapy for his residual neurologic deficits and cerebellar atrophy," the complaint states, citing the man's medical records.
The CDC and state and local health departments began investigating five listeriosis infections in Kansas in March 2015. The cause of the infections was determined to be the single-serving Blue Bell product called "Scoops."
Three of the five Kansas patients died.
The Kansas investigation led to a limited recall by Blue Bell of the implicated products from the Brenham facility earlier this year.
