AJ was 20 years old and lived in Belgium. Five days earlier, he had cooked spaghetti with tomato sauce and left it at room temperature.
One night, he decided to reheat it and eat it. Half an hour later, he developed a headache, nausea, and abdominal pain, followed by diarrhea and intense vomiting. Instead of asking for help, he went to bed after midnight, hoping it would pass.
At 11 in the morning, he didn’t get up to go to class. His parents went into his room and found him dead. According to the autopsy, he died around 4 a.m., about ten hours after the meal, from liver necrosis and acute pancreatitis.
Tests found Bacillus cereus, a toxin-producing bacterium, both in his body and in the leftover pasta. The case, which occurred in October 2008, was published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, and Dr. Bernard has now revisited it on YouTube. He clarifies that such an outcome is not usual, but insists that cooked food should be refrigerated within the first two hours.