Toxic tea Utah - A newly released CCTV footage taken Aug. 10 shows how a woman nearly got killed after drinking poisoned tea in a Utah barbecue restaurant chain.
67-year-old Jan Harding was the woman in the surveillance footage of the toxic tea Utah incident. The event occurred at Dickey's Barbeque, a restaurant in South Jordan, Utah.
The toxic tea Utah incident was vividly captured on camera, showing Harding taking a single sip from a cup of unknowingly poisoned iced tea that she poured out of a self-serve machine.
After taking a sip from her straw, Harding immediately noticed that something was wrong, the New York Daily News reports. She then turned away and doubled over in pain, before spitting out the poisonous liquid into the sink as she desperately tried to get the liquid off of her mouth.
The toxic tea Utah incident brought potentially deadly chemicals inside Harding's body, but not before the poisoned tea burned her mouth and throat, reports news.com.au.
According to ABC News, the iced tea had been laced with lye, an odorless chemical which appears the same as sugar. Lye is reportedly used for degreasing deep fryers. It is also the active ingredient in Drano.
In the video showing the toxic tea Utah incident, it was a good thing that Harding immediately spit out her drink and rinsed her mouth out several times with water.
The video of the toxic tea Utah incident shows Harding bracing herself against the counter for about a minute until her husband, Jim, came over and left to get help.
"When you watch the footage, you can see that as soon as she takes a sip, immediately, she knew something was wrong," the family's attorney Paxton Guymon told TV station FOX 13 in Salt Lake City.
"You can almost see the panic on her face, too, like she doesn't know what's going on," Guymon added.
Last Wednesday, the couple told FOX 13 that they watched the footage of the toxic tea Utah incident for the first time. They added that the injuries Harding acquired were all still very painful.
"They were very silent while they watched it," Guymon said.
"I think it was a tough memory to relive through video," the lawyer added.
Threatening to be fatal, the lye from the toxic tea Utah incident seeped in through Harding's esophagus, leaving deep, ulcerated burns. She also suffered severe burns to her mouth and throat. She had been hospitalized for two weeks.
Authorities told The Associated Press they have ruled the iced tea machine had been accidentally mixed with lye by a restaurant employee, hence creating a dangerous concoction.
Though the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office did not decide to file criminal charges in the toxic tea Utah incident, but the family is reportedly moving forward with a lawsuit.
Harding's family has since learned that the reason for the toxic tea Utah poisoning was because a former worker accidentally mistook a bucket of fryer cleaner for a sugar container since they appeared the same.
The family is currently seeking monetary compensation for the toxic tea Utah incident. They also want the Dallas-based barbecue chain to enforce new policies so that the the mistake of the poisoned tea does not happen again, said the attorney.
Five weeks from today, a similar incident occurred at the same restaurant when a toxic chemical inside sugar was added to an employee's drink, hence the employee suffering burns, said Guymon.
As of the current moment, it is being questioned why the toxic chemicals had not been disposed of during the incident with the employee.
The toxic tea Utah poisoning is being avoided from happening to another person again, hence the Hardings' lawsuit.
"At the end of the day, we've got to do something to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Guymon.
"And that's the Hardings' real goal. They want good to come from this. And if it means the company changes its way of doing business, they want to see that happen," the lawyer added.
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