2 families sue Huntley High School district after E. coli outbreak caused students’ ‘permanent injuries’

A year after an E. coli outbreak at Huntley High School sickened 16 people, forced six to the emergency room and hospitalized two, Huntley Community School District 158 faces a lawsuit over the outbreak.

Two parents, Jacqueline Stout and Steven Kutrubis, are suing the school district, on behalf of their children, Aiden Stout and Nathan Kutrubis, who were freshmen at the time, having just started high school a couple of weeks before.

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 10 in McHenry County court, contends that the school district committed “willful and wanton negligence” by knowingly allowing a food service employee to handle food in the Huntley High cafeteria when the employee had E. coli.

District 158 did not provide comment on the lawsuit despite multiple requests. The district has not yet filed any formal response in court, according to records available as of late Monday.

The filing said the teens consumed contaminated lettuce at the school around Sept. 14 or 15, 2023, which led them to become seriously ill and required emergency medical intervention and hospitalizations. The lawsuit says the students were permanently injured as a result of eating the food and will “require ongoing care and monitoring.”

The McHenry County Department of Health said in a report on the outbreak that department was notified about the first cases of the illness on Sept. 17, 2023, and opened an investigation the next day.

‘We all suffered’

Kate Kutrubis said her son suffered a brain injury and was unresponsive in the hospital. He also had two seizures and had to be placed on a special device to try to keep his body temperature down because it got dangerously high, she said.

Kutrubis’ son also had to have constant dialysis during much of his hospital stay. He was in the hospital for several weeks, until about Halloween, which his mother said included some time at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, where he had to relearn how to walk. After his release, he needed physical, speech and occupational therapy three hours a day, three days a week.

“We sent a perfectly healthy child to school [and then] this happened,” Kutrubis said.

Her son still needs lab work done every six months, possibly for the rest of his life. A recent ultrasound indicated his kidneys still have healing to do, his mother said.

The whole experience was “traumatizing” for the family, but she is grateful her son is recovering. He attended Homecoming this weekend.

Jacqueline Stout said her son was hospitalized for eight days. He was in the pediatric ICU and experienced kidney failure. He was very weak and very sick, she said.

Her son will need to have his blood checked every three months for the rest of his life, although the frequency might eventually decrease. He no longer eats cafeteria food; now he brings his lunch from home.

“My son suffered. We all suffered. It was a horrible thing,” Stout said.

Fifteen of the 16 people who were sickened with E. coli in Fall 2023 ate food from the Huntley High cafeteria, according to the health department’s report and the lawsuit. All 15 ate a sandwich from the cold sandwich station, and all known cases, the sandwiches had lettuce, according to the lawsuit.

The first news of the E. coli illnesses at the high school came on Sept. 21 of last year, when the district and the health department announced five cases and said the first was identified five days earlier. By the end of Sept. 21 that had risen to six cases, and within a few days to nine. But it wasn’t publicly revealed until December, after the health department updated its online contagious illness reports, that there were 15 E. coli cases in total in September associated with the school.

‘Permanent injuries’

In addition to “permanent physical emotional and psychological injuries,” the teens suffered “disability and disfigurement in the past and will in the future,” the suit contends.

The lawsuit also states the district is liable to the plaintiffs for “the harm proximately caused by its manufacture and sale of an unsafe and defective food product ... with a deadly pathogen.”

The lawsuit also alleges the families were on the hook for all the medical expenses stemming from their sons’ hospitalizations. An affidavit included in the lawsuit indicates the plaintiffs are seeking more than $100,000 in monetary damages. The families also are also requesting permission to seek additional damages later.

All confirmed E. coli cases were students or noncafeteria staff, according to a McHenry County Department of Health report released in December 2023. However, there was a cafeteria worker who tested positive but had no symptoms, so that was designated an “undetermined” case.

After the health department opened its investigation and before the outbreak was declared over, the health department inspected the cafeteria nine times, according to health department records.

The health department conducted its first inspection of food service at the high school Sept. 18, 2023, after students began reporting symptoms such as severe abdominal pain, high fever, excessive vomiting and diarrhea – and officials at Northwestern Hospital Huntley had alerted the health department the day before that three students were showing symptoms and had been tested for E. coli, with results pending.

According to the health department report, the first inspection took place after food service had concluded for the day, and many items on inspection checklists were marked as “not observed,” including that bare hands were allowed to touch food.Issues during cafeteria inspections

Another inspection the next day detailed findings in the “Protection from Contamination” checklist. This inspection noted the cafeteria was out of compliance regarding food-contact surfaces being cleaned and sanitized.

Hot sub sandwiches “were not marked with a discard time of [four] hours past the time it was removed from temperature control,” the inspector wrote. “Staff indicates that all hot sub sandwiches are purchased prior to the end of lunch service which is within the [four]-hour time limit after removal. The facility is to identify the time regardless of whether items will be sold out during the four-hour time frame or not.”

The investigator further noted that the hot water temperature of the sanitization rinse machine was below 180 degrees and urged that the unit be repaired or replaced so that it maintains a temperature between 180 and 194 degrees.

During a 10th inspection the day after the outbreak was declared over, the health department inspector found the hot water rinse still was not maintaining at least a 180 degree temperature. The cafeteria was not allowed to use the hot water rinse for sanitation until the health department gave approval, according to the notes section of that inspection report.

Those inspection reports are available to the public and can be found on the health department website by clicking on Food Facility Inspection Reports.

The civil lawsuit against the school district has been given a court date of Dec. 10.