Raleigh, N.C. – This time, no one is doubting the claims: A customer really did find part of a worker’s finger in a pint of frozen chocolate custard purchased at a shop in North Carolina.
Despite the horrifying find – and widespread media coverage of an infamous finger incident at a Wendy’s restaurant in California in March – workplace statistics show that the chance of a body part winding up in food is extremely small.
The piece of index finger, which an employee had severed at the first knuckle, was found Sunday by Clarence Stowers in a pint of dessert he purchased from Kohl’s Frozen Custard in the coastal town of Wilmington.
Kohl’s owner Craig Thomas said 23-year-old employee Brandon Fizer tried to catch a bucket of custard he had dropped and accidentally put his finger into a machine that beats the custard mix. As shop workers tried to help Fizer, a drive-through window attendant unknowingly scooped frozen custard from the bucket containing the finger and served it to Stowers.
Stowers did not return repeated calls for comment Tuesday. He has reportedly hired a lawyer and is holding on to the severed finger as evidence in a possible lawsuit.
“I thought it was candy because they put candy in your ice cream or whatever to make it a treat,” he told a Wilmington television station Sunday. “So I proceeded to put the object in my mouth, got all the ice cream off of it and spit it in my hand.”
After rinsing it off with water, Stowers said he realized what it was and “just started screaming.”
The North Carolina discovery came not long after a Las Vegas woman made headlines across the country with a claim that she found a fingertip in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose, Calif.
Investigators have called Anna Ayala’s claim a hoax and charged her last month with attempted grand theft related to millions in dollars of financial losses Wendy’s has suffered.
