Nurse says ground beef possibly linked to recall sickened her family

A suburban nurse says she and three family members became sick after eating hamburgers that may be linked to a major ground beef recall. The tainted beef has been blamed for an E. coli outbreak.

No one has confirmed their symptoms were caused by E. coli, but Genevieve Trabado says for she and several of her family members, it was a painful few days. They believe they ate contaminated hamburgers at a weekend barbeque.

Two days after eating burgers at a barbeque, Genevieve Trabado says she felt sick. As a nurse, she recognized it might be from E. coli.

"Tuesday I started getting symptoms, around the afternoon, evening, stomach cramps and really bad diarrhea," said Trabado.

Trabado says three of her relatives at the barbeque had the same symptoms and they believe it's because the burgers were bought at GFS Marketplace store. The stores carry hamburger from Wolverine Packing Company, which earlier this month issued a massive recall of hamburger tainted with the E. coli bacteria.

A spokesperson for GFS said in a statement: "Upon learning of the recall, GFS Marketplace implemented standard recall procedures, which includes urgent notification to the stores with instructions to dispose of all recalled product and display a recall notice."

Doctors at Loyola say they have seen several patients with symptoms, but have yet to confirm the cause as E. coli.

"Typically it's vomiting, crampy abdominal pain, diarrhea, sometimes you can fevers with this," said Dr. George Lew, Loyola University Medical Center.

Doctors say the symptoms can last for a week and can be painful. In some cases involving young children or the elderly it can be more serious, even potentially fatal. And in some cases it can take a while before the symptoms appear.

"You could have symptoms up to 10 days after eating it, so I'm just crossing my fingers it doesn't hit any of the young kids," said Trabado.

The best way to avoid E. coli contamination is to thoroughly cook meat so it is well-done. Make sure not to mix utensils or containers with raw and cooked meat, and make sure to thoroughly wash your hands before and after handling raw meat.