Man, woman claim food poisoning

JABARRI SUPERVILLE

Chad Callendar and his wife, Asha, from Arouca, are pursuing legal action against a popular fast food restaurant after they allegedly got food poisoning from eating chicken, burger and fries they bought from the restaurant.

Asha told Newsday earlier today that around three pm yesterday afternoon, she and her husband, who are both Flow technicians, bought a meal at the restaurant, which was their first meal for the day. “We bought the meal and when I gave the guy at the counter the ticket receipt, he didn’t give it back to me. Then, around after five, minutes to six, while we were driving, he [Chad] started complaining about severe belly pain. I was feeling fine, so neither of us took it on, really,” she said.

She added that soon after, her husband began experiencing a severe headache. She said, “We went back home because he couldn’t drive anymore. All this time I wasn’t getting any pain. When we got back home, he went to sleep around nine.” Chad said he went to sleep to try to “sleep it [the pain] out” but the sleep was far from sound.

Asha added, “Around ten [pm] I started getting belly pain. Then around three am I got a really bad pain in my stomach and I screamed out. I started vomiting, got loose stools, like everything inside me started falling out, I was cold sweating and my head was spinning.” She said she and her husband went to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital a little after four and was examined. The doctor’s examination revealed that the couple had experienced food poisoning.

Callendar said he and his wife were put on drips and were told by their attending doctor that they were “severely” dehydrated. “We left the hospital at nine this morning and we went to [the fast food restaurant] and we spoke to a manager and told them we were going to take legal action and publish it [our story] in the papers. The manager said they would speak to the Area Manager,” Chad said. The couple said when they bought the food; everything was alright with it, except the coldness of the fries. “I had a piece of the chicken and the fires and he ate the burger. We both ate different things and we both got food poisoning. It must be something with the oil or something; that’s not normal,” Asha said.

Chad said the situation has made them “stressed out” and Asha believed if they carried some of the food home for their two-year old son, he “might still be in the hospital.” In a conversation with the Area Manager of the restaurant, it was requested that the couple carry the medical report from the doctor but they were told they would be able to get the report within six to eight weeks. However, Asha said the doctor that tended to them remains adamant that they got food poisoning. Chad and his wife were subsequently asked by the fast food giant’s Area Manager to write their own report with details about what happened.

Chad said he is a “professional man” and he will not allow the matter to be swept under the carpet.