One Photo Will Make You Never Want to Drink Bottled Soda Again
May 10, 2016
A Texas family claims to have discovered a rat inside their 3-year-old’s half-drunk Dr. Pepper bottle.
On Sunday, John Graves of Katy, Texas, bought his 3-year-old grandson Kayden a 20-ounce bottle of Dr. Pepper while spending the day in Galveston. Kayden drank half of the soda before Graves put the cap back on and brought it home with them.
On Monday, the family allegedly discovered a ghastly sight in the half-empty bottle of Dr. Pepper. It appeared that a bloated, beady-eyed rodent was floating in the liquid that the 3-year-old had consumed. Graves told KPRC 2 in Houston:
“Pretty good size. About three inches long with a big tail. You think it’s rabies. You think of dirty, filthy rodents. What did he ingest?”
Kayden’s pediatrician was contacted and blood and urine tests were conducted. The family also reached out to the state of Texas, the CDC and the Dr. Pepper company. The owner of the Galveston store that sold Graves the soda bottle told Channel 2 that all their bottles come sealed so it must be a defect from the manufacturer.
The Dr. Pepper spokesperson denies that anything could have gotten into the bottle during the manufacturing process. They released a statement to KPRC 2 News:
“Nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of our consumers. We take all consumer complaints very seriously, are very concerned about the call we received today from Mr. Graves and are investigating it as best as we can.
“What we know from our experience is that given the controls and safeguards we have in our production facilities it is virtually impossible for any foreign object to enter any container during the bottling process. All of our containers enter our facility on pallets in our warehouse and remain covered until the moment they are placed on our high-speed filling lines. Once on the filling lines, they are inverted and rinsed out before they are filled and capped.
“We have offered to dispatch a courier to pick up the product to take it out for testing by a third party forensics laboratory, but the consumer has declined this request. This lab would be able to analyze any rodent that got into the product, determine how it entered the container and even inspect the contents of its stomach. This process can take 6-8 weeks to yield conclusive findings. Until we have the opportunity to review the contents, we don’t have a way to do a full investigation.”
Though Dr. Pepper has requested to conduct tests on the bottle in question, Kayden’s family insisted on doing their own tests on the contaminated product before giving it to the company. Graves said:
“I want to get the rat tested to see where it came from, how it got there, if there is any medical concerns we should be concerned about.”
They family is also considering reaching out to a lawyer to discuss their next steps.
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