by DEIRDRE LEDLEY, Contributor
In a season that is normally plagued with sickness, this winter on the Manhattan College campus seems to be providing extra suspicion.
More specifically, food poisoning has been an issue that is sending students to health services or even the hospital.
Locke’s Loft is suspected to be partially at fault for this sickness, according to Christine Croland, sophomore civil engineering major.
“I had a turkey wrap from Locke’s and it looked completely fine when I first started eating, but after a few bites I started to feel weird,” she said. “I got extremely nauseous and threw up maybe 20 minutes later. For the next three to four hours I barely could stand.”
Brittany O’Malley, a sophomore communications major, agrees with Croland.
“I was curled up for almost five hours after eating a turkey wrap from Locke’s. As soon as I arrived back into my room, I had this wave of nausea that prevented me from doing just about anything.”
Laura Mulcahy, nurse practitioner at MC, struggles to blame Gourmet Dining.
“It would be hard to point fingers that this is related to a foodborne illness,” she said. “Viruses act very much the same way and a common denominator cannot be found.”
Patrick Estanbouli, a senior RA on campus, was able to witness an incident of possible food poisoning first hand this past week.
“I was up with a student that actually had to go to the hospital during the night. It could have been partly the flu, but the doctors did happen to find some kind of bacteria that his body rejected that could result in a type of food poisoning,” he said.
The most important advice whether you experienced food poisoning or a virus is to keep your personal space clean, according to Mulcahy.
“Washing hands and hand gel is the best protection,” she said. Brian Weinstein, head of Gourmet Dining, commented on the situation.
“Gourmet Dining takes all such reports seriously and investigates each vigorously,” he said.
Weinstein, like the nurse, also reassured that Gourmet Dining is not the root cause of these issues, but his staff has worked harder lately to make sure that they are still not the issue in the future.