Chinese man climbs out of 27th-floor flat to ‘seek immortality’ after eating magic mushrooms

A Chinese man climbed out of his 27th-floor flat after eating self-cooked jianshouqing mushrooms at home and having hallucinations.The man, surnamed Xue, from southwestern China’s Yunnan province, said he believed his family was inviting him to “train himself to cross the tribulation and attain immortality”, a practice often seen in Chinese fantasy novels.Xue said he unconsciously clambered out of the window of his flat and climbed down a water pipe, scratching his belly as he did so.Luckily, his friend on the 26th floor heard him in time and dragged him inside.Xue, above, is pictured in a hospital bed after his magic mushroom ordeal. Photo: 163.comXue was sent to a nearby hospital, where he failed to recover consciousness and fell into a coma.His friends immediately transferred him to the Affiliated Hospital of Yunnan University.A doctor at the hospital, surnamed Zhu, said they performed a series of emergency gastrointestinal cleansing procedures on him. It took him days to recover.Xue, who was originally from eastern China’s Jiangsu province, had lived in Yunnan for 40 years. He cooked wild mushrooms at home every year.It is thought that Xue began to hallucinate partly due to the fact that he had not cooked the mushrooms thoroughly enough. Photo: 163.comIt emerged that Xue had fried two portions of jianshouqing mushrooms together, ate one share on the day and left the other in the fridge. The next day, he refried the mushrooms from the fridge and ate them together with alcohol.Zhu said he had treated a number of mushroom poisoning cases recently, mostly because the wild fungi were undercooked. In Xue’s case, he failed to heat up the overnight mushrooms enough.June to August each year is the peak season of wild mushrooms in Yunnan.Not only do locals look forward to the season, tourists from around the world gather in the province to enjoy the fresh and “fleshy” taste.Further ReadingMany of the wild mushrooms are poisonous when they are undercooked and require the cooking skills of a professional cook.Jianshouqing, which is translated as “see hand blue”, got the name because it turns blue when bruised and cut.It is a type of wild, psychoactive bolete mushroom and is said to require at least 15 minutes of cooking at above 120°C to become edible.The mushroom has become famous nationally, especially because of cases of hallucination that people from Yunnan report each year.Wild mushrooms growing in a forest. Eating them can cause toxic reactions. Photo: ShutterstockEven a doctor at the Affiliated Hospital of Yunnan University said he and his family had mushroom poisoning for the past three consecutive years because of undercooked jianshouqing.Consuming certain wild mushrooms with alcohol also triggers toxic reactions.Xue said the experience gave him lingering fear: “I have quit alcohol, wild mushrooms and even smoking, even though they were my top three favourites.”“Thank goodness his friend heard him, otherwise he would really be ‘crossing the tribulation’,” said one online observer.“I will give up the idea of trying wild mushrooms and just eat properly cultivated mushrooms instead,” said another.