Boy's DQ Milkshake Mixed With Chemical Cleaner

Employee mistakenly filled tainted bottle with syrup used in 7-year-old's shake
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 27, 2014 2:17 PM CDT
Boy's DQ Milkshake Mixed With Chemical Cleaner
A Dairy Queen is shown on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012, in Nelsonville, Ohio.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

In the second such incident at a food establishment this month, a 7-year-old boy had to go to the hospital after drinking a vanilla milkshake with an unexpected ingredient: chemical cleaner. "It tasted gross," Riley Chase tells ABC News of the not-so-sweet treat he sampled last week at a Colorado Dairy Queen. "Something was bubbling on my tongue." When he handed the shake to his mom, Lisa, to try, she said she could taste a "very strong cleanser" that burned "all the way into your stomach."

When Chase went back into the restaurant to see what was up, she said employees showed "no concern," reports 9 News. When she got home, she called a manager and found out that an employee had accidentally poured vanilla syrup for the shakes into a bottle that had been soaking in a sink filled with floor cleaner and degreaser, reports WGHP. Although Dairy Queen says in a statement to ABC News that this was an "isolated" occurrence and that employees were getting retrained and "reprimanded," Chase isn't so forgiving. "They could've cost people their lives," she says. At least two other customers received similarly toxic concoctions—all three went to a local hospital to be safe. (Click for more on a woman who accidentally drank iced tea laced with lye.)

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