NEWPORT NEWS — One day earlier this summer, Gunter “Garshon” Morgenstein spread some liverwurst over a bagel, eating the favorite snack he grew up having as a boy in Germany. But his family says the liverwurst was contaminated, and that it ended up killing the 88-year-old Newport News resident of food poisoning a few weeks later. Morgenstein — a retired Newport News hair stylist — was admitted to Riverside Regional Medical Center on July 8 after growing short of breath, and died at the hospital 10 days later.
“I think we’re all just still in shock, and just like completely mind blown, that this is how he died, because of lunch meat,” his son, Garshon “Shon” Morgenstein, said Saturday. Though the elder Morgenstein was initially set to be released from the hospital a day or two after being admitted, his wife of 50 years, Peggy Morgenstein, questioned that decision. “My mom was like, ‘I don’t think he should come home, because something is just off about him,’” said Shon Morgenstein, 49, of Virginia Beach.
“He doesn’t look right, and he seems super weak.” Riverside did more tests to get to the cause of the issue when a blood culture came back positive for Listeria monocytogenes. It was around that time that the family saw a news report about a major meat recall, to include the Boar’s Head Stassburger Brand Liverwurst made at a plant in Jarratt, Virginia.
“Then we put two and two together,” Shon Morgenstein said. According to the July 26 .