As the Colorado governor essentially got rid of restaurant inspection disclosure at the door, Kent Erdahl of Fox 31 Denver reports that 14-year-old Noah Thompson has spent the entire month of June in the ICU at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children.
“This has been a real struggle for us as a family,” said Marc Thompson, Noah’s father.
That struggle began when Marc Thompson took his family to eat at Pho 75 on May 24. Within hours he and his wife felt stomach pain and had digestive problems, but a few days later Noah experienced much more severe symptoms.
“They immediately admitted him into the emergency room as he was going into kidney failure,” Marc Thompson said. “He had severe pancreatitis.”
The Colorado Department of Health and Environment tells the Problem Solvers that they are investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157 at Pho 75. Noah is the only person hospitalized, but there are three more confirmed cases and the potential for others that have gone unreported.
The Department of Health also indicated that the restaurant is working with the Tri-County Health Department to address the issue. The restaurant closed voluntarily Friday.
When the Problem Solvers visited Pho 75 on Saturday, it was closed but the sign on the door notified customers that it was simply for remodeling.
Though the doors were locked, there were three men eating at tables inside but none of them would come to the door to speak about the E. coli outbreak.
When the Problem Solvers visited the other Pho 75 location a few miles away, which shares the same owner, an employee inside had a different answer.
Employee: “(The owner) is on a vacation right now. They went back to Vietnam for a week.”
The restaurant is well known to health inspectors and the Problem Solvers, getting an ‘F’ on our Restaurant Report Card in 2014.
According to Tri-County Health inspection records, Pho 75 continues to rack up critical violations, specifically for “Food Borne Illness Risk”. The violations range from issues with the storage of raw meat to employee hygiene.