Police are investigating after two people claimed they found pills in the food they bought from a west Auckland McDonald's.
The pair say they went to Te Atatū McDonald's on Wednesday night and ordered sundaes. However they claim to have found a nasty surprise in their ice creams.
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The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, told Newshub, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend went to the Te Atatu McDonald’s on Wednesday night for a treat.
It wasn’t until they got home and ate the sundaes, that she tasted something bitter
She bit down on something hard that crushed in her mouth.
"All I feel straight away is it going to the back of my throat and I start gagging and coughing, like a burning sensation in my throat," she told Newshub.
Her sister found remnants of pills in her own sundae, forcing them to call the police and rush to the hospital.
They stayed at the hospital for a number of hours - both in shock and feeling nauseous.
She said they were lucky they didn’t consume enough for it to have a serious reaction on an adult - but if it was a child it would be a different story.
"All I can think about is that if a child had had that, the doctor said it would be enough to do something to them."
The pills are being described as prescription medicine or pharmaceutical tablets with the results of testing expected back today.
"We’re still in the dark ourselves, we don’t know what it is. We really want to find out of course, because we don’t know how serious it is and we’ve ingested it."
She said she doesn’t even want to think about the fact someone could have intentionally tampered with their food.
"If they knew what they were doing then I hope they get in trouble for it and I hope a whole lot of repercussions come on them because it’s so irresponsible. You don’t know who could be ingesting that, a child, anyone".
Waitakere Police Detective Senior Sergeant Roger Small said police are looking into the incident.
A McDonald's spokesperson says they are helping to find out what happened.
"We are cooperating with the Police investigation, including stripping the shake and sundae machine and sauce dispensers to illustrate how they work," they told Newshub.
"We've also reviewed CCTV and provided this to Police. Normal procedures were followed and there was nothing untoward in the filling and operation of equipment, or as the order was made and handed to the customer in Drive-Thru. We are trying to contact the customer so we can confirm more details."
Newshub.
