By Bruce Sherman

He is a freckled-faced redhead, a 13-year-old student at an Eastside junior high school. He describes himself as a pretty good athlete. School officials say he's a bright boy.

Late last Friday night his parents found out he had eaten "magic mushrooms" during an earlier gathering with a few friends.

They found out as their son was strapped to a table at Evergreen General Hospital. He was screaming and swearing. The mushrooms had been found when his stomach was pumped.

Yesterday they revealed the story of their son's experience Friday night, in hopes that it would be a warning to parents and other youngsters who might be seeking the mushroom high. The youth joined in the warning.

"I saw the devil -- I'd close my eyes and see nothing but red," he said, back in school yesterday. His friends had picked the mushrooms in a nearby field, and school officials said they were popping up all over the place.

"It was too horrible to describe. I'll never do it again.

His mother said he appeared strange, different than she'd ever seen him, when he strode into their home Friday night at 10:30.

A few minutes later his father found him lying face-down on a bathroom floor, apparently unconscious. As he was helped to a kitchen chair, his parents noticed that he had urinated in his pants. He wasn't aware of it.

"I slapped him and he didn't respond," his mother said yesterday as she describedd the experience. "I think he was hallucinating quite badly. His eyes were rolling and he was very upset. I slapped him and I pulled his hair."

His parents drove him to Evergreen General. They tried to bring him back to reality by having him sign his name. He couldn't remember it.

After his stomach had been pumped, according to his mother, a mushroom expert was found who said the mushrooms were hallucinogenic, not toxic. Their son would be all right, he told them.

"But my son was strapped down and screaming," the mother said. "He was crazy, and he probably would have killed himself eventually because the hallucinating effects were so violent." "For a couple of hours they didn't know which way he was going to go. If you want my opinion, nobody in there knew what was going on."

It was 4 a.m. when the youth finally calmed. He was discharged from the hospital on Sunday and returned to school yesterday morning.

The vice principle of his school said yesterday these mushrooms are growing "everywhere around his school and the kids apparently are picking them."

If his students are picking and eating the mushrooms, said the vice principle, it's happening all over the area. King County officials agreed with his speculation.

"These young teen-agers have gotten into a little fad," said Dr. Alf Pederson, an official with the Seattle-King County Health Department. "They're taking a real risk. They could easily get into trouble with toxic mushrooms."

He said seven teen-agers recently were brought into a hospital in South King County with violent physical reactions to mushrooms. And officials at the Poison Center at Children's Orthopedic Hospital said they had received 40 calls since November 10, dealing with mushroom related problems.

No recent mushroom deaths heve been reported in this area, but officials warn that only an expert can tell the difference between toxic and non-toxic mushrooms.

And they say that this region's recent mild, moist weather has given way to a mushroom boom of sorts, compounding the problem of possible mushroom deaths and bad trips.

"Nothing I've ever experienced is even close to it," the Eastside youth said of the horror of his experience. He described how his coat melted as it hung beside him in the hospital.

And he told how it seemed that the medical personnel were torturing him with the equiptment they were using to help him.

"Maybe other kids will learn from my experiences," he said. "Maybe my telling you about them will help."

Saturday November 27, 1976. Page 15B

Psychedelic Hunt on in NW

Mushroom Mania In Full Bloom

SEATTLE (AP)--It's psychedelic mushroom madness once again in the Pacific Northwest.

At least 40 persons have telephoned to inquire about mushrooms in the past two weeks at the Children's Orthopedic Hospital Poison Center. Law enforcement officials say hundreds of people, most of them teenagaers or persons in their 20's, are trying to find mushrooms that contain psilocybin and psilocin chemicals akin to LSD

Prosecution of the hallucinogenic mushrooms is a misdemeanor. Beyond that, eating too many can make a person sick, health officials said, and they look just like other mushrooms that are poisonous.

The most common varieties sought by hunters of illegal mushrooms are those known locally as "psilocybe" mushrooms and those of the mushroom genus panaeolus, said Richard C. Powell, an instructor in mushroom identification at a community college in suburban Bellevue.

They are relatively common in the Northwest, Powell said, and perhaps are becoming more common. There are increasing reports of their presence "and maybe it's because we're becoming more aware of them," he said.

Mushroom hunting after the first cold rains of fall is a common event in the Northwest. Most folks go after the nonhallucinogenic type, but the hunter's after a "high" are particularly persistent.

Some prowl dark corners around downtown business buildings and trample over lawns and fields.

"I've had them swear at me, and I've had them come tell me to get back in my house," said a Bellevue woman who asked not to be identified only as Mrs. Lockhart. "They come into the yard and pick them and put them in little plastic baggies. They always put them in baggies."

One boy, a surburban junior high school student, said he ate some hallucinogenic mushrooms and "it was too horrible to describe -- "I'll never do it again."

When brought into the hospital, he swore, struggled against restraining straps and clawed at hospital attendants who fought to punp his stomach. He beleived they were torturing him.

The magic mushroom fad has spread to Skagit Valley, about 50 miles north of Seattle, where some farmers reportedly have put up no trespassing signs in fields that were heavily picked in the past.

Further north, Whatcom County Pros. attorney Dave McEachran said many farmers have complained about vandalism by mushroom seekers. He said there is trafficking in the illegal plants.

"People in just the last few years have discovered that hallucinogenic mushrooms are available," Powell said. "A few people have known for a long time, but they have stayed away from them."

"I think what we got is a mushroom cult that thinks that these mushrooms are less of a problem than LSD," Powell said. "But it's like Russian Roulette for some young people."

An international mycology journal recently published the discovery of a new hallucinogenic mushroom first collected on the UW campus.

Gaston Guzman and Jonathan Ott of two Mexican Universities made the announcement in the latest issue of "Mycologia" magazine. The mushroom, Psilocybe stuntzii, was named after Daniel Stuntzii, UW Professor, "in recognition of his valuable reseaarch in the fileld of mycology," Guzman and Ott wrote.

Stuntz first collected the psilocybe in the fall of 1972.

"It appears mostly in cultivated areas," Stuntz said, "That's why it's on campus so much."

The mushroom has been reported near Kincaid Hall and the Health Science building. It grows especially well in the beauty bark used as mulch by the campus ground crews, according to Stuntz.

The fungus could not be identified when first picked, he said. A taxonomic guide indicated the mushroom could be one of two species. "But neither one of them fit the description of the one we found," he said.

With the discovery of the psilocybe came the event of what Guzman and Ott termed "recreational use" of Psilocybe stuntzii and other psilocybin mushrooms.

Collecting "magic mushrooms" has grown to fad proportions in the last two years, Stuntz said. The practice itself dates back centuries.

The legality of this "recreational use," is vaught in a Catch-22 bind, however, according to Sgt. Mike Mudgett, campus police officer.

There is no law against picking as many mushrooms as you like, Mudgett said, but it is illegal to possess a "dangerous narcotic." Since one of the hallucinogenic substances found in the mushroom, psilocybin, is classified as a "dangerous narcotic," possession of the mushroom is illegal." "So far," Mudgett said, "no collectors of campus mushrooms have been arrested, although a few were given warnings."

"In order for an officer to make an arrest, he would be required to have a certain amount of expertise in mushroom identification," Mudgett said.

That could be a problem, Stuntz said, it is very difficult to "key out" of identify members of the genus Psilocybes.

The hallucinogenic mushroom has a brown to green color and a mealy odor and taste. It turns blue in injured areas. This convienient characteristic helped popularize it among "intrepid student experimenters," according to Guzman and Ott.

There have been no reports of "adverse effects or hospitalizations" in western Washington from the-intake of psilocybin mushrooms, despite their increased popularity, their article stated.

"Psilocybin and psilocin (another hallucinogenic compound in P. stuntzii) are not really dangerous," Stuntz said.

"tThe mushroom has no side effects as far as we know, other than the hallucinations and possibly some nausea," he added. "There are the ethical and moral questions, though."

Stuntz said although he has never tried the mushroom himself, students have given him varying reports as to the quantity needed for a high. It varies anbywhere from one to 30 mushrooms because of different individual reactions, he said.