COLUMN ONE - Making the right sick call - A reporter felled by salmonella suspected the sushi place. He was surprised to learn the real source.

This was not a typical bellyache. It radiated from my gut. Whatever it was, I could feel it in my toes. I tossed about, trying helplessly to fall back asleep.

Beads of sweat rose suddenly on my forehead. A sharp chill hit me. My teeth clattered, my body shuddered.

Then things got bad.

I bolted for the bathroom.

I couldn't have known it at the time, but in those early Monday morning hours, dozens of other people across Los Angeles were suffering just like I was. By sunrise, some of us would wind up in hospital emergency rooms. We were men and women, old and young, linked only by our unfortunate decision to eat a certain meal at a certain place at a certain time.

An outbreak had begun.

Each year, food-borne bugs sicken an estimated 75 million people in the United States. In Los Angeles County, a small army of inspectors, doctors, specialized nurses and epidemiologists in the Department of Public Health watch over our 38,000 restaurants, markets and bakeries, hoping to catch problems with cleanliness and food handling before a meal gets contaminated.

When two or more people get sick from the same food -- an outbreak -- these are the experts who try to figure out where and when and how things went sideways. It happens 40 or so times a year in the county, sometimes at restaurants you would never expect.

I, of course, learned all this the hard way.

When a friend half-dragged me into Cedars-Sinai hospital about 3 a.m., I was a mess. The unrelenting bursts of diarrhea and vomiting dehydrated me to the point that I was having trouble walking and keeping my head upright.

After a half-hour wait, a nurse led me to a bed. With my frequent sprints for the bathroom, a fever that was hovering around 103.5 degrees and the knife fight going on in my gut, I was presenting the classic signs of food poisoning, but the doctor sent off vials of my blood to rule out anything more serious.

By the time I shuffled out seven hours later, I had had three liters of saline water (nearly 7 pounds) and some top-shelf antibiotics pumped into me. The doctor discharged me with a vague diagnosis of an infected intestinal tract and told me to call in a few days to see what the lab tests revealed, if anything.

But I was convinced I already knew.