Bakery Customer Sustains Serious Injuries From Ingesting Foreign Object in Pastry

ByJoseph O'Neill

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Updated onSeptember 27, 2017

Bakery Customer Sustains Serious Injuries From Ingesting Foreign Object in Pastry

This case involves a plaintiff in Oklahoma who became severely ill after ingesting a piece of metal wire that had been baked inside of a cheese danish. The plaintiff had purchased the danish from a bakery, where the pastry’s wrapper was noted to be intact at the time of purchase. The man noticed small pieces of metal in the pastry after he had consumed half of it, and began to experience severe gastrointestinal pain a few hours later. It was discovered that the man had suffered a significant gastric perforation, which required multiple surgeries to correct and resulted in a massive infection.

Question(s) For Expert Witness

1. Please describe your experience in food safety as it relates to this setting.

Expert Witness Response E-101627

inline imageAs an academic I instruct on food service or food product industry management's roles in food preparation to eliminate the 3 types of food borne hazards: biological, chemical and most relevant to this case, physical hazards. As a risk management professional and private consultant, I provide technical guidance on identifying and eliminating potential liabilities to clients' products and operational procedures. This industry can opt to use a myriad of technologies and techniques to detect and remove unintended contaminants from the food supply including magnetic mechanisms and metal detection, as well as and various radiography technologies. Common breakdowns can occur at any point along the flow of the product from production to retail plating / service. Within the scope of a food safety professor for past 15 years, I have lectured on prevention of contaminants and controls of potentially injurious physical hazards in foods including metal objects.

About the author

Joseph O'Neill

Joseph O'Neill

Joe has extensive experience in online journalism and technical writing across a range of legal topics, including personal injury, meidcal malpractice, mass torts, consumer litigation, commercial litigation, and more. Joe spent close to six years working at Expert Institute, finishing up his role here as Director of Marketing. He has considerable knowledge across an array of legal topics pertaining to expert witnesses. Currently, Joe servces as Owner and Demand Generation Consultant at LightSail Consulting.

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