This Time It's Real - Finger Found in Custard

This Time It's Real - Finger Found in Custard

NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, May 3, 2005

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- A man who ordered a pint of frozen chocolate custard in a dessert shop got a nasty surprise inside - a piece of severed finger lost by an employee in a workplace accident.

Unlike a recent incident at a Wendy's restaurant in California, no questions have been raised about the truthfulness of the claim of the finger served up at Kohl's Frozen Custard.

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Officials from the state departments of agriculture and labor went to the shop to investigate Monday, and the shop's owner confirmed one of his employees lost part of a finger in an accident with a food-processing machine. What was not immediately clear was how the severed finger got into the custard.

WWAY-TV in Wilmington reported that Clarence Stowers found the finger in a pint of chocolate frozen custard he purchased at Kohl's on Sunday night.

Stowers, who did not immediately return calls Monday from The Associated Press, said, "I thought it was candy because they put candy in your ice cream or whatever to make it a treat or whatever. So I said, 'OK, well, I'll just put it in my mouth and get the ice cream off of it and see what it is.'

"So I proceeded to put the object in my mouth, got all the ice cream off of it and spit it in my hand. So, I came here into the kitchen and rinsed it off with water and realized it was a human finger and I just started screaming."

Stowers told the TV station he is contacting a lawyer.

Shop owner Craig Thomas said the pint must have been prepared between when the employee's finger was severed Sunday and when a manager was notified about the accident. Thomas did not immediately return a message left by The AP at his shop Monday.

Authorities were alerted to the problem by a call from a hospital emergency room to the New Hanover County Health Department, said Joe Reardon of the Agriculture Department's food and drug division. It was not immediately clear how much of the employee's finger was severed in the accident.

Reardon said department workers closed the shop and supervised as the food processing equipment involved in the accident was cleaned and sanitized.

Labor Department spokesman Juan Santos said his department is investigating how the accident happened and whether Kohl's was in compliance with state workplace safety rules - a probe that likely will take about two weeks.

In March, a Las Vegas woman claimed she bit down on a 1 1/2 inch-long finger fragment while dining with her family at a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose, Calif.

Investigators have since called her claim a hoax and charged her last month with attempted grand theft related to millions in dollars of financial losses Wendy's has suffered since news broke of her claim.

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