A Maryland couple found a live scorpion in a bag of spinach they bought at a grocery store. Shanmukha Pranay Rajeev Jerripothula told NBC Washington he and his wife Sri Sindhusha Boddapati purchased a bag of spinach from a local giant on Friday.
On Monday afternoon, when Boddapati opened the bag of spinach she noticed something unusual inside of the bag.
“I saw something inside the bag crawling,” said Boddapati, according to NBC. “I thought it was a cricket in the beginning, and then I noticed when it was in the bottle that it was a scorpion.”
Live scorpion found inside of Giant brand spinach
She was able to capture the scorpion inside a water bottle and recorded a video with her cellphone to send it to her husband, who was at work at the time. Jerripothula returned home and took the bottle with the scorpion to the store.
Jerripothula told workers at the Giant store that they shouldn’t sell the Giant brand spinach anymore because it might contain scorpions inside the bag. The man told WJLA the store wouldn’t recall the product at that time.
However, the store pulled out the Giant brand spinach six hours after Jerripothula showed them the water bottle with the scorpion. The grocery store was contacted by several news broadcasters and then issued a statement to News4 Washington. It’s worth mentioning Giant Food of Landover didn’t issue a complete recall of the product.
“Customer satisfaction is our highest priority. We regret any inconvenience to our customer,” said the statement from Giant Food of Landover, Maryland. “We take the quality of our products very seriously, and we are following up with the supplier to take every step to ensure this isolated incident does not occur in the future.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, about 30 of the 1,500 scorpion species worldwide produce venom that is toxic enough to be fatal. The clinic says that although scorpion stings can be painful they are rarely life-threatening. There can be risks of complications from scorpion stings mostly in young children and sometimes elderly adults.
The Mayo Clinic notes that healthy adults don’t need treatment if they’re stung by a scorpion, but if a child is stung, parents should seek medical care immediately, as the same amount of venom could impose more serious consequences for children.
Dead bat was found inside a prepackaged salad in Florida
Last week, two people in Florida discovered a dead bat in a prepackaged salad, which prompted a recall and an investigation conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The customers had eaten some of the content of the prepackaged salad, branded Fresh Express’ Organic Marketside Spring Mix when they discovered the animal. The CDC issued a press release on Saturday, in which they explain that the animal, who was in a deteriorated condition, was being tested for rabies, and the customers were being tested for any medical issues brought by the ingest of the salad.
The CDC said the bat was sent to rabies lab for testing, as bats in the United States have been found to have rabies sometimes. However, the deteriorated condition of the animal did not allow the CDC to rule whether it had rabies or not. They explain that transmission of rabies is uncommon if a person eats a rabid animal.
“Transmission of rabies by eating a rabid animal is extremely uncommon, and the virus does not survive very long outside the infected animal,” said the CDC in the press release. “CDC is supporting Florida local and state health officials in evaluating the people who found the bat in the salad.”
They add that although rabies transmission in those cases is low, is not zero so the two people who ate the salad were recommended to start post-exposure rabies treatment. The two people appeared to be in good health and none of them show signs of rabies.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommend people that may have purchased the product to discard it and not consume it, and they note that people who already ate the product but didn’t find animal material are not at risk and don’t need to contact their health department.
No other reports of prepackaged salads containing dead bats have been reported, but Fresh Express issued a recall on April 8 of some of the cases of Organic Marketside Spring Mix. The salads were sold only in Walmarts from the Southeastern region. Other remaining prepackaged salads from the same lot have been removed from stores where they were sold.
Fresh Express issued a press release saying that it takes matters of food safety very seriously and that the company complies with all food safety regulations.
Source: NBC Washington