Throwing up for 8 hours...if they tried rehydrating they pretty much purged their system of un-absorbed toxins. Loose bowels would have expelled even more in their digestive track. They weren’t lucky enough to get quick competant medical help.
Long ago I had food poisoning on the Upper West Side in NYC....was vomiting bright red blood. at the end of a 6 hr ordeal. Fortunately my wife was there to try and restore electrolytes and my dear DR. MIL called colleagues at Bellevue to receive me. Was told I flatlined briefly in the ambulance. Took four units of blood. Two days of testing revealed no toxins in blood and stomach samples. Kept under observation for a week...final verdict, Mystery gastroenteritis. Go figure
Sounds like Campylobacter. Very nasty stuff.
Rotavirus is nasty: in 2015, there were two billion cases of gastroenteritis, resulting in 1.3 million deaths globally.
Ruptured esophagus...that’s what took my grandmother.