1 min read

Restaurant accidentally poisons customer

A diner at a Gold Coast restaurant received a very nasty and painful surprise when eating lunch with his family.

After sprinkling what appeared to be salt on his food, he suffered severe chemical burns to his mouth from eating the meal.

Despite suffering extreme pain, bleeding and blisters, the diner was treated at the scene by paramedics and avoided going to hospital.

It was later discovered the salt shaker on the table had been filled from unlabelled containers of white powder at the back of the restaurant, which included a 10kg tub of caustic soda.

Top One Seafood Chinese Restaurant was ordered to pay $25,000 in fines plus more than $15,000 in court and legal costs for this dangerous health and safety breach.

This is not the first time an incident like this has happened. In 2013, a fast food outlet in Western Australia caused injury to 11 customers after an employee mistook caustic soda for salt.

The Bunbury branch of Chicken Treat was fined $37,500 and ordered to pay costs of more than $5,000.

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