A ‘MORTIFIED’ mother has described her shock after her three-year-old daughter almost choked on a sharp bone found inside a turkey nugget.
Donna Gardner, of Poplar Road, Kidderminster, cooked four Bernard Matthews Turkey nuggets for her daughter, Leigh, but soon after her first mouth full the tot started sputtering.
“I could see that something was wrong,” Mrs Gardner explained. “I thought that she was choking because she was coughing and sputtering.”
The 23-year-old shouted for her husband, Peter, who frantically put his fingers into Leigh’s mouth and scooped out the food, brought from Iceland, in Bridge Street.
“As she spat it out, I saw the bone,” Mrs Gardner told The Shuttle, “It was the same size as a two pence piece. The end of it was as sharp as a needle prick.
“For the next few days she was scared of her dad because she didn’t realise he was trying to save her.
“As a parent I’m mortified. I’ve never seen my daughter like that. It was scary.
“I felt relieved that she wasn’t choking but when she spat it all out and I looked down at the food I thought, ‘what’s that?’ “The bone was absolutely gigantic for such a small turkey nugget. That’s the terrifying thing. It’s scary to think what it could have done to my daughter.”
Mrs Gardner added that she was given a £25 cheque from Bernard Matthews following the incident but she returned it as she was not satisfied with the response.
“It’s not about the money,” she said. “I want an investigation because the bone should not have been missed. It was too big.
“I want to warn other parents to take care with their children’s food because there could be something in it.
“I’m angry with Bernard Matthews for missing the bone.”
A Bernard Matthews spokesman said the company followed strict quality control procedures to ensure products left its premises in “prime” condition. He added: “We have very sophisticated monitoring equipment as well as teams of dedicated personnel inspecting and checking production continuously.
“Regrettably, it appears that, in this instance, insufficient trimming was carried out during preparation and a fragment of bone escaped our rigorous inspection procedures.
“We apologise that, on this occasion, a turkey nugget did not pass our stringent quality standards and assurance procedures, and for any distress that this may have caused.”
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