Phoebe Judge

In early 1993, he was living just north of Seattle with his wife and their two children.

In late January, their 16-month-old, Riley, got sick and they took him to the hospital.

Riley wasn't getting any better.

The doctors decided that he should be airlifted to Seattle Children's Hospital.

Earlier that month, within a span of 24 hours, nine kids had shown up at Seattle Children's Hospital with symptoms just like Riley's.

This is writer Jeff Benedict.

The doctor at the hospital got in touch with the state health department and reported that he'd never seen anything like this before.

Nine sick kids with E. coli in 24 hours made him worry that there were going to be a lot more.

This was on a Tuesday, and by Friday, the number was up to 37.

A few of the children had been moved to the ICU.

Doctors were trying to figure out what was going on.

Jack in the Box is one of the oldest fast food chains in the country.

27 of the 37 sick children had eaten there.

The top public health official in the state, a man named John Kobayashi, contacted Jack in the Box headquarters and said they had a problem, a potential E. coli outbreak.

At that time, what is known about E. coli?

E. coli is a kind of bacteria that can be found in the intestines of people and animals.

There are many different strains of E. coli, and many don't cause any harm.

But some can be deadly, including one called E. coli 0157 H7.

One of the few things that they did know was that most people at the time got E. coli from eating undercooked ground beef.

State epidemiologist John Kobayashi asked Jack in the Box how they cooked their hamburgers.