The family had bought the LSD-tainted meat from a local Walmart

Mar 10, 2014 17:46 GMT  ·  By

An entire Tampa, Florida family has been hospitalized after consuming meat that had been tainted with LSD.

A nine-month pregnant woman, her partner and their 6- and 7-year-old daughters unknowingly ate the LSD-laced meat purchased at a Walmart store in Tampa and started hallucinating shortly afterwards.

Investigators have taken leftovers from the family's dinner and their oven to test for drug, and revealed on Friday that the steak contained traces of the hallucinogenic.

Ronnie Morales, 24, was the first one to feel sick after ingesting the meat. His 31-year-old girlfriend Jessica Rosado became so concerned that she immediately drove Mr. Maroles and her two kids to St Joseph's Hospital.

When they arrived, the woman and the two girls also began to experience hallucinations.

The two girls, Elyana and Royna, were hospitalized and given emergency treatment, including tracheal intubation. They were discharged on Wednesday along with Morales.

As for the nine-month pregnant woman, doctors were forced to induce her labor on Monday night and she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She was also released from hospital on Thursday.

“There was no indication that we know of right now that the meat tasted funny. It was the physical symptoms they had, which included hallucinations, dizziness, rapid heart rate and difficulty breathing,” Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor said at a news conference, as reported by Daily Mail.

“The family has no idea where this may have come from and there's no indication of any involvement on the part of the family,” she added.

Apparently, the family had moved into their new home two days earlier, and that steak bought from a local Walmart was the first dinner they served in the new house.

Walmart is cooperating with the local authorities and it already removed meat from the store's shelves to hand it over for testing. However, the retailer says that the meat comes to their store already packaged, so their employees don’t handle unwrapped meat.

“We know our customers expect safe, quality food and we require our suppliers to meet the highest of food safety standards. It's unclear where and how the food was tampered with or if the tampering occurred after purchase. However, out of an abundance of caution, we have pulled the remaining product from the store,” the company said in a statement.

Police investigators, along with county health officials and agriculture officials, are investigating how the drug got into the meat.