A New Mexico woman bit into a meal at Chili's and wound up with a 2-inch needle in her tongue, according to a lawsuit.
Ashely Phillips, 23, was chowing down on ribs and mashed potatoes in July when the mishap left her in pain. Then there was the alarm over whether she had been exposed to a life-threatening disease.
Phillips said Chili's employees quickly took away the needle and a manager refused to hand it back to her when she and her husband returned to request it for testing. She said the company took 52 days to send the needle to a testing lab.
In the meantime, Phillips said she tested negative for HIV, hepatitis and other potential infections. But she has stopped nursing her 2-month-old child.
"I had to stop nursing my son," Phillips told the Farmington Daily Times. "Nursing is so important for an infant's health and emotional development that we are suing for emotional damages."
The lawsuit was filed in the San Juan County District Court on March 9.
The couple said the needle tested negative when the chain got the results back. But Phillips said there's no way to know whether the needle was cleaned.
"It takes a while for some of these things to show up," she said. "We have to go back for more testing in a year."
Representatives at Chili's declined to comment.
Mitch Burns, attorney for Phillips, said his client was "injured by the needle once and then twice by Chili's corporate office who failed to produce the needle" soon after it was requested.
0 comments:
Post a Comment