Fast-food restaurant McDonald's issues an apology to a consumer who was served milk tea laced with disinfectant in a store in eastern China.
Due to drinking the contaminated drink, the woman with the surname Huang suffered damage in her digestive tract.
Bad Milk Tea From McDonald's Lands Woman In Hospital
According to a report from South China Morning Post, Huang went to the hospital after suffering from vomiting, a sore throat, and a stomachache shortly following her consumption of the McDonald's milk tea.
The McDonald's she visited was at a branch at the Changle Airport in Fuzhou, the capital of China's Fujian province, a report from the Strait Metropolis Daily revealed.
Doctors say that Huang's symptoms were an effect of drinking sodium dichloroisocyanurate, which is a chlorine compound that's commonly used by the catering industry to kill bacteria in water. It's also often used by hotels and resorts for the maintenance of swimming pools.
Huang's husband Tang explains that she only had a single sip of the milk tea before noticing its bad taste. However, she had already swallowed some of it at that point.
Then upon removing the lid of the drink, Huang recognized the strong scent of disinfectant.
"I asked staff workers about the drink, but they just took it and smelled it, without giving any explanation," Tang says. "They threw the drink into the rubbish when we were not looking, but we took it back."
McDonald's addressed the incident on its Weibo feed, saying the mistake was unintentional and the staff would be put through further training. The statement said the restaurant was "deeply sorry for the error."
Similar Incident In The US
It's not the first time disinfectant has been claimed to contaminate a drink at a McDonald's branch. On the other end of the planet in Jacksonville, Florida, a similar incident occurred back in May 2018, according to a report from WPTV.
Lee Graves ordered a Coke at a Westside McDonald's when he claims the drink exploded all over him "like a darn volcano that's a science experiment."
To prevent it from making more of a mess inside his truck, he took a few gulps of the drink and quickly realized that it tasted like chlorine.
After landing in the hospital where he was set up with an IV, Graves filed a police report, claiming he found what he believes is a bleach pod in his Coke.
