Moments from death in McDonald's

Today I'm continuing with the food theme - perhaps I shouldn't always blog around lunchtime! I spotted this story in the Daily Mirror recently:

A man with a serious food allergy is suing McDonald's for £5m after he was given a cheeseburger instead of a hamburger. Jeremy Jackson... suffered a severe reaction to the cheese... and "was only moments from death" or serious injury by the time he reached the hospital.

Jackson, 20, from West Virginia, made it known to staff five times that he could not eat cheese because of his condition.
I can just imagine this. Jeremy goes into his local McDonald's and tells the person behind the counter five times that he can't eat cheese: "Give me a BURGER... but with no CHEESE... don't give me CHEESE... I can't eat a CHEESEBURGER, I have an allergy to CHEESE. So that's a BURGER, no CHEESE please."

The McDonald's staff hear 'cheese' and 'burger' and that's what Jeremy is given. He would have done better not to mention the cheese thing at all. Or perhaps stick to the Chicken McNuggets.

Secondly, why would Jeremy go to the trouble to tell McDonald's five times that he can't eat cheese – five! – and then not check inside the burger just once to make sure there isn't any cheese?

But he's not the only one at fault. The story goes on to say:

Jackson's mother and a friend are also named in the lawsuit and are claiming they could have been injured rushing him to hospital.
Never mind what this says about the modern litigious society – what mum, knowing her son has a potentially fatal cheese allergy and having heard him mention this to McDonald's five times, doesn't remind him to check his burger for a stray cheese slice?

Cheese: can be fatal

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That reminds me of that scene in Borat the Movie when he goes to the supermarket and asks:

"What is this?"
"That's cheese"
"And this one?"
"Cheese"
....repeated about 60 times. Genius!

Anonymous said...

Am I right in thinking that the wrappers also say what type of burger it is. You'd have thought if he was handed a burger in a wrapper saying 'cheeseburger' he might have twigged!

Anonymous said...

I bet he has the Chicken McNuggets next time.

Anonymous said...

Number one, his mother's an idiot...

Number two, I agree with Sarah... the food is easy to identify by its wrapping... even illiterate people know that cheeseburgers come in yellow wrappers and hamburgers; white or blue wrappers!

Number three, I don't know about in the UK, but here in the US if you order a cheeseburger from Mac & Don's, there's a whole boat load of cheese on the wrapper when you open it, and virtually none on the sandwich. So in theory, could he have been thinking, "Ah, cheese all over the wrapper then? Must be none on the burger", and dove right in? I can't believe he trusted those Mac & Don morons with his LIFE. I wouldn't trust those dolts to being in charge of watching paint dry! They would screw even THAT up :)

I wonder if they offered Jeffrey a free Hot Apple Pie for all his trouble? That's their solution to smoothing over virtually any problem that a customer takes up with them.

Force Of Nature said...

In regards to what Kiss my ass said,

I work at McDonalds and we are people too! We all make mistakes. Before you go talking about people and saying stupid shit, maybe you should try to work at the McDonald's company. As a matter of fact I know this boy and know where he ate. The restaurants around that area are praised for there precision. If you think you can do better, come apply. Until then, shut your mouth and if you don't like the way the McD's company runs, don't eat there!


*Lady in White*

Editrix said...

Why oh why can't a West Virginian be in the news for something that's (a) good and (b) not embarrassing. It's always something like "Kid Almost Dies from Cheese" or "Man Crashes Car into Gorge; Survives on Old Condiment Packets." Other than that, there's Mary Lou Retton and Jessica Lynch. And that's it.