Laura Arber claimed that she took three out of her four children to their local McDonald's to pick up an order before returning home to dig in.
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The 32-year-old rushed to her daughter's aid after noticing that she had been choking on her McNuggets. Arber was furious to find pieces of a blue face mask that had been cooked into the food. She told Hampshire Live:
My little daughter just started choking. I put my fingers down her throat to loop it out there was just blue with the sick. I thought, 'What on earth is this?'
Arber discovered that at least 2 out of the 20 nuggets were contaminated after ripping apart another nugget and finding more pieces of the surgical mask. Arber continued:
I didn't even think it could be the chicken nugget, but I looked over at the box and all I could see was this blue coming out of another chicken nugget in the box of 20
In photos taken of the affected food, it is clear as day that the very same blue fabric that has become an accessory to everybody's face was now in her daughter's nuggets.
'Cooked off-site'
After speaking to the store on the phone, the furious mum went back to the McDonald's in Aldershot, Hampshire, where she made the order, to complain to the staff about what she had found.
The mum was not met with any sympathy or an apology and instead was told that the McNuggets were cooked off-site.
However, Arber claims that the worst part isn't that the staff hadn't apologized but that they continued to serve the nuggets to other customers:
And the worst thing was that they carried on serving them. Before I left I said: 'Are you going to keep serving them?' And they were carrying on serving them and that was the big thing for me. I just couldn't believe the way the management were handling it.
'She could have died'
Laura believes that the fast-food franchise needed to be more aware and acknowledge their mistake as they could have been responsible for her daughter's death. Arber continues:
What if I had walked out of the room and my daughter had choked? She could have died. It's a split-second thing. And I am just thinking, we have just come out of a pandemic and there is a face mask in my child's chicken nugget.
Previously Arber had a great opinion of McDonald's after her son was born and was admitted to intensive care the mum stayed in housing provided by Ronald McDonald House Charities UK who support families with hospitalised children.
However, her sentiments towards the company have changed since her latest encounter.
A McDonald's spokesperson spoke up about the issue stating 'we are very sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. Food safety is of the utmost importance to us and we place great emphasis on quality control, following rigorous standards to avoid any imperfections'.
The spokesperson continued 'when the matter was brought to the attention of our staff, we apologised, offered a full refund and asked the customer to return the item so we could further investigate the matter and isolate the affected product'.
