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An adorable 6-year-old Massachusetts girl died from E. coli — and her heartbroken mother believes it came from a contaminated McDonald’s cheeseburger.
“It was fast. It was really, really fast,” devastated mom, Samantha Ocasio, said of her daughter’s sudden death. “I don’t want it to happen to anybody else’s kids.”
Little Angelica Vazquez, of Springfield, ate the fast food dinner before a night of trick-or-treating on Halloween — then fell ill the next evening, Ocasio told masslive.com.
The girl began throwing up but when Ocasio asked if she needed to see a doctor, she insisted, “No, my belly just hurts.”
Ocasio, a mom of seven, assumed the sickness was a simple stomach bug, so she gave her daughter Gatorade and told her to rest, she said.
But things took a sudden turn on Nov. 2, when the child passed out and went into cardiac arrest after a bubble bath, the outlet reported.
The girl was rushed to Baystate Medical Center — where she died 12 hours later.
The last thing she said to her mother was, “I love you,” Ocasio said through tears.
“I’m going to miss a lot of firsts with her, and it’s just a lot,” Ocasio sobbed to WBTV. “I’m going to miss a lot.”
An outbreak of E. coli has been linked to McDonald’s onions — served on some cheeseburgers at the restaurant — after more than 100 people in 13 states were sickened by them in recent weeks, federal health officials said.
There have been no confirmed cases of the E. coli strain at McDonald’s restaurants in Massachusetts, according to the US Centers for Disease and Control Prevention.
But Ocasio believes the meal caused her child’s deadly illness.
“My whole concern is ‘OK, if it wasn’t the McDonald‘s, what is it?’” Ocasio said.
“My daughter was happy. She was healthy.”
The girl was the only person in the family to eat a cheeseburger from McDonald’s and her siblings opted instead for chicken nuggets, Ocasio said.
“I’ve heard of E. coli before. But…never in a million years did I think I would be sitting here right now talking about any of this,” Ocasio said.
McDonald’s says the outbreak was linked to slivered onions served on Quarter Pounders — different from the diced onions used on the smaller cheeseburger that Angelica ate.
After the outbreak, the fast food chain says it stopped selling the burgers and identified an alternate slivered onion supplier at about 900 restaurants.
There have been no food safety concerns from the US Food and Drug Administration at McDonald’s since Nov. 14, the restaurant said in a statement.
“We are absolutely heartbroken for this family’s loss, and we extend our deepest sympathies. We take any and every report of a potential food safety issue seriously,” McDonald’s said.
“Upon being made aware of this devastating report, we immediately reached out to the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health, our own third-party experts and our supply chain team. What’s important to know is that the public health officials have not connected any reports of E. Coli to McDonald’s in Massachusetts or the broader northeast region.”
