»

A Pregnant Canada Woman Ordered Latte at McDonald's, Was Given Cleaning Solution Instead

Though both mother and unborn baby are okay, this is not the first time a McDonald's restaurant has messed up in terms of food and service safety.

Updated:August 2, 2018, 2:00 PM IST
A Pregnant Canada Woman Ordered Latte at McDonald's, Was Given Cleaning Solution Instead
Representative Image (Image courtesy: Reuters)
Loading...
A 32-weeks pregnant woman in Canada went to a McDonald’s outlet to get some latte and ended up instead with cleaning fluid in a cup.

The shocking incident happened in Alberta, Canada on Sunday when Sarah Douglas, who is pregnant with her third child, went to a McDonald’s drive-through outlet to get some coffee, CBC News reported.

Douglas, who was driving her son to a baseball tournament, took a sip of the ‘latte’ she had been handed and instantly spat it out. She had to rinse her mouth with water after that. The pregnant woman immediately drove back to the outlet in University Drive W. and demanded an explanation.

Turned out that a bottle of cleaning solution had been hooked to the milk supply line of the coffee machine. In fact, Douglas said that the bottle in question was still attached to the machine when she arrived back with the chemical in her cup.

The over 7-months-pregnant Douglas then contacted poison control authorities and was told that the chemical was an acid based solution.

Dan Brown, owner of the outlet in question, issued a public statement in which he claimed to have apologized to Douglas and expressed regret at the incident having occurred in his restaurant.
Despite the apology, the incident led to widespread outrage on social media:





Surprisingly, many on social media also turned on Douglas for drinking coffee at such an advanced stage in her pregnancy:



















Some went as far as to claim that Douglas was an ‘unfit’ mother and that her children should be taken away from her for choosing to drink coffee while pregnant:










Funny that most of the pregnancy advice seemed to come from men. In fact some even defended McDonalds and accused Douglas, the careless mother, of overreacting:










Unaffected by the criticism, Douglas told CTV Lethbridge news channel that she was glad she had shared her story.




According to reports, the mother and the unborn baby are both okay. And while the merits of drinking coffee while pregnant may indeed be questionable, for McDonald's, the incident could (and should) act as a wakeup call.

This is not the first time that fingers have been raised at the global fast-food chain’s safety and service standards.

One of the most infamous incidents and definitely one that McDonald's would want to forget was in 1992 when a 79-year-old widow was received severe burns after accidentally spilling a cup of boiling coffee that she had received from a McDonald’s drive-through in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The ‘McDonald's Coffee Case’ as it is now known culminated into a lawsuit that ended with McDonald's coughing up $200,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages to the victim, who had spent $10,000 on her medical bills and spent eight days in the hospital for the injuries.

More recently, a couple in New Zealand bought a ‘Happy Meal’ for their three-year-old son, who was served raw chicken nuggets. McDonalds apologized for the incident and called it a ‘human error’ on part of the employees.

In September 2017, a California man had posted pictures of his ‘raw’ hamburger in Merced.
McDonald’s may not be lovin’ the controversies, but it seems that their fans across the world continue to rally their support. And cash.

According to an April report in Reuters, the world’s biggest fast-food chain’s profits blew past forecasts on global sales with McDonald’s Corp’s shares rising by five percent.
Read full article
Loading...