Central Maine Newspapers Portland Press Herald
PORTLAND -- An elderly woman who was sickened when she ate tainted beef produced by New York-based Fairbank Farms is suing the company in Maine.
Lawyers say 88-year-old Alice Smith purchased the tainted meat at Shaw's grocery store in Portland in early September and stored it in her freezer. She fell ill with an E. coli infection after she consumed the beef in November, and ended up spending a month in the hospital.
Samples taken while she was hospitalized revealed that she was infected with the strain of E. coli associated with the Fairbank Farms outbreak.
In October, Fairbank recalled almost 546,000 pounds of fresh ground beef distributed from North Carolina to Maine. At least one other lawsuit related to the beef has been filed in Maine.