You Want Fingers with That? Human finger found in a bowl of chili

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A diner at a Wendy's fast food restaurant in San Jose, California, found a human finger in a bowl of chili prepared by the chain, local officials said on Wednesday.

"This individual apparently did take a spoonful, did have a finger in their mouth and then, you know, spit it out and recognized it," said Ben Gale, director of the department of environmental health for Santa Clara County. "Then they had some kind of emotional reaction and vomited."

Local officials launched an investigation after the incident on Tuesday night and the medical examiner determined on Wednesday that the object was a human finger.

Officials are trying to determine if the finger came in the raw materials Wendy's used to prepare the chili, Gale said.

More: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&e=2&u=/nm/odd_finger_dc

:smoke:

I am thinking it must have been from a dead body, because if you're working at the food plant, you would have to recognize, hey, my fucking finger is gone!

And the nail was nasty looking!!

:puke:

So it probably came from the meat-packing plant. The article above is a bit misleading because it's not apparently a whole finger, but the tip. (Still disgusting, I know.)

Meat packing plants in this country are the most dangerous places a person can possibly work, and yes, amputations take place on a frequent basis, as do other, equally horrible injuries. Workers are crushed, gassed, stabbed... you name it, it happens. Since many of them are minimally educated, many are barely legal immigrants, and many are not aware of their rights as workers, it's possible the person did not even get workman's comp for the injury. It's not surprising that the line would not have been stopped and the offending batch pulled from production. I'm sure the person who lost her finger got some care - probably not as much as s/he needed - from the plant nurse, but the fact that the line was not stopped is not surprising.

The packing plants are all about Profit Uber Alles, so it's just another example of why that beef is scary. For more details on the ugliness that is the american meat packing industry, you want to read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.

I feel bad for those folks who work their asses off for chump change.

:(

But, I do feel sorry though for the poor person that lost it, and also the ones with the luck to find it.