JACKSONVILLE, FL (WJXT/CNN) – A Florida man says he was treated at the hospital for poisoning after he found a bleach pod at the bottom of his McDonald’s soft drink.
Lee Graves says he was getting a soda at a McDonald’s in Jacksonville, FL, Thursday morning, when he was given the wrong size cup and told the drive-thru worker about the problem.
"The girl hands me a small Coke, and as I'm talking on the phone, I politely whisper to her, 'Ma'am, I ordered a large. This was supposed to be a large Coke.' Well, she mumbled something, and I could not understand what she said. She shut the window,” Graves said.
After the worker gave him the large drink he asked for, Graves noticed something was wrong.
"As I'm leaving the parking lot, the Coke just starts to explode everywhere. It erupted like a darn volcano that's a science experiment that a kid would do… My initial response was it's spewing all over my brand new truck… so I grab it, and I take a couple of gulps to stop it from foaming. My initial impression was that it tasted like chlorine,” he said.
Graves claims he found a square-shaped tablet, which he believes is a bleach pod used by the restaurant for cleaning, at the bottom of the soda. It sent him to the hospital, where he got an IV and underwent several tests, including two rounds of blood work.
"The doctor… called McDonald's personally, and McDonald's told him there are two blue substances at the restaurant. There's blue latex gloves, and they said that they use a blue bleach pod to wash their towels. So, that's what we assume it was was a blue bleach pod, and that's what the hospital treated me for was bleach and chlorine poisoning,” Graves said.
Graves filed a police report with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
The McDonald’s manager told police the restaurant did use cleaning pods but only to clean the Frappuccino machine.
Graves suspects the drive-thru employee whom he corrected about his drink size may have spiked his soda.
Police say the employee remembered handling Graves’ order and acknowledged the mix-up over the drink size, but she denied putting anything in the drink. She says the only time she touched the soda was to put the lid on and that she wasn’t upset about Graves’ correction.
The restaurant owner says the incident is under investigation. The Florida Division of Hotels and Restaurants is also looking into the case.
Copyright 2018 WJXT, Lee Graves via CNN. All rights reserved.
