McDonald's issued an apology after a British woman allegedly found a torn piece of a blue surgical mask in chicken nuggets bought from the fast-food chain. The woman claimed two chicken nuggets in a box of 20 contained the mask material.
The incident happened on Tuesday, July 4 at a McDonald's store in Aldershot town in Hampshire, reported Hampshire Live. Laura Arber ordered a take away from the fast-food chain for her family. She reportedly found her six-year-old daughter Maddie choking and upon further inspection found that the chicken nugget the girl was eating had the piece of mask cooked into it.
"My little daughter just started choking and I put my fingers down her throat to loop it out there was just blue with the sick. I thought what on earth is this?! I didn't even think it could be the chicken nugget but looked over at the box and all you could see was this blue coming out of another chicken nugget in the box of 20," Arber told Hampshire Live. "And the mask is cooked into it, like a part of the mixture and it's clearly a mask. You can see the seam and how solid it is in there."
McDonald's Continued Selling Chicken Nuggets
The 32-year-old mother of four said she complained about the incident to the local McDonald's store and the management told her the nuggets were not cooked on site. She also expressed shock over the fact that the store continued selling the nuggets without intervening into the matter.
Expressing fear for her daughter's life had she not seen her choking, the shocked mother said, "What if I had walked out of the room and my daughter had choked? She could have died. It's a split-second thing," she told media.
McDonald's Issues Apology
Following the incident, McDonald's issued an apology and offered Arber a "full" refund for her meal. "We are very sorry to hear about this customer's experience. Food safety is of the utmost importance to us and we place great emphasis on quality control, following rigorous standards to avoid any imperfections," a McDonald's spokesperson reportedly said.
"When the matter was brought to the attention of our staff, we apologized, offered a full refund and asked the customer to return the item so we could further investigate the matter and isolate the affected product," the spokesperson added.
Twitter Users Furious With McDonald's
Soon the issue started making buzz on Twitter with users criticizing McDonald's over the incident. Some of them vowed not to eat from the fast-food chain, at least for a while.
"I think I've just been put off McDonalds for life after reading about a woman who found a face mask in her six year old's chicken nuggets meal," a Twitter user wrote.
