It's not every day you roll up to a trusted fast-food joint and are accidentally served a cup full of dangerous cleaning agents in place of your drink. But that's exactly what happened to one pregnant mom from Alberta, Canada, when she stopped to get a coffee from McDonald's last weekend. Through a horrific mix-up, the mom was served — and actually took a sip of — espresso mixed with toxic chemicals instead of milk.
Sarah Douglas says she got the McDonald's coffee en route to her son's baseball tournament, but as soon as she took a sip she knew something was off.
The grossed-out mom didn't swallow her sip of coffee. Instead, she pulled over on the side of the road to spit it out and wash her mouth out with water. “I opened up the lid of the coffee and out pours this pungent smell of chemical,” Douglas told Lethbridge News Now. “It wasn’t a latte at all.”
Douglas, who is 32 weeks pregnant, says she drove back to the McDonald's, where a worker told her that somehow two cleaning lines were accidentally left attached to the coffee machine. The label of the cleaner warned users that it was an acid-based cleaning agent that could cause “serious eye irritation” and “an allergic skin reaction.”
Even more disturbing, Douglas claims another employee who overheard their conversation said this isn't the first time this has happened.
Luckily, Douglas and her unborn baby haven't suffered any ill effects from the chemical-laced latte.
The mom contacted Alberta Health Services and poison control shortly after the incident and scheduled an appointment with her doctor. But because she didn't actually swallow the solution, there's no risk of longterm issues.
Dan Brown, the franchisee who owns the McDonald's location, told Buzzfeed In a statement that he's deeply sorry for what happened and is working with Douglas to make it right.
“What happened is that the machine was being cleaned — as it is every morning. Unfortunately, the milk supply line was connected to the cleaning solution while this guest’s drink was made," he explained. "McDonald's is renowned for its food safety protocols and I am sorry that this happened in my restaurant here in Lethbridge."
Douglas says an apology isn't good enough, and that's why she's speaking out. But people seem to be judging her more harshly than the McDonald's.
In the discussion on Twitter, more than a few people jumped in to shame her for drinking caffeine in the first place.
Meanwhile, over on Facebook, the commenters also took issue with the fact that Douglas dared to go to McDonald's.
For the record, pregnant women can stop at any restaurant they want, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that moderate caffeine consumption — about a 12-ounce cup of coffee per day — is generally okay during pregnancy and is not a contributing factor in complications such as miscarriage or preterm birth.
Regardless, what happened to Douglas is horrifying and could have seriously put her and her baby in harm's way.
“This needs to be more than a slap on the wrist,” Douglas told Global News. “We need to take it more seriously when we are dealing with food handling, I mean, to put a lid on something that doesn’t look like a latte, that should be your first indication.”
Let's put the blame where it belongs and stop shaming pregnant women for wanting a latte once in a while.
