A holiday turned into a horror when a nine-year-old girl was got stuck with a hypodermic needle in her hotel bed, a family claims.
According to KOMO News, Emily Smith was with her parents at the GuestHouse Inn and Suites in Aberdeen, Washington. She was crawling into a bunk bed when a syringe pierced through the mattress and stuck her right heel this weekend.
The family reported that the needle was caked in dried blood, but that wasn't the only surprise. Emily's mother, Angie Smith, said that there were other disturbing items like plastic bags, bloody bandages, and other syringes under the mattress.
"I couldn't believe it. It was almost like, is this real?" Johnson's mother Angie Smith told KIRO 7.
Smith called the police and took her daughter to a hospital emergency room. Emily Smith will have to go through routine blood checkups for a year to ensure she didn't contract any diseases, including hepatitis.
The family was in town for Emily's fast-pitch softball tournament and they checked into GuestHouse Inn and Suites during their stay.
They were angry that the hotel did not refund them for the room despite the incident. Hotel Manager Angel Housden said that she did not have the authority to give them back their money, so she passed the information to the hotel owner. The hotel called the situation a "horrible situation," but they are waiting for the results of a police investigation because they doubt the family's story.
Hotel owner Jas Dhaliwal is suspicious of the family's story. He claimed that his staff offered to dial 911 when the family told them what happened, but they denied. He also said that the family was offered another room instead, but they accepted a change of linens on the beds.
Dhaliwal told KIRO "their story is not true," "it was their needle" and the family was "just trying to get a free room."
They intend to refund the Smith family if their story checks out.
The family claims that they called police right away, which seems evident as a dispatch log shows the mother reported the incident nine minutes before the hotel called.
The family is considering a lawsuit.
"It's not necessarily about the money. But I don't want anybody to ever have to deal with this ever again," Smith told KIRO.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
