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MURRAY — A man found a small blade inside of his meal Tuesday at the Rumbi Island Grill in Murray. When confronted, restaurant managers said a broken piece of equipment was to blame.
After being checked out in an emergency room, Alexis Larett said he was just glad he caught the blade before it had a chance to do any serious damage.
"Thank the Lord I didn't swallow anything," he said. "That was my main concern, that I'm not getting cut up internally."
Thank the Lord I didn't swallow anything. That was my main concern, that I'm not getting cut up internally.
–Alexis Larett, Rumbi patron
It was a small blade, about the size of a nickel, in the teriyaki bowl Larett ordered at the Murray restaurant. "I reached in to grab it out (and) I pulled out a little razor blade," he said.
The blade had lodged between his teeth. When he pulled it out, he and his girlfriend, Vickey Lopez, were horrified.
"(I thought), what is this? … Did I ingest something? Did I eat more of this?" Larett recalled.
Worried someone had tampered with their food, they immediately notified the manager on duty. The manager told them the store's zucchini chopper had broken earlier in the day and multiple blades had broken off.
"Why wouldn't they pull it out? Why wouldn't they just shut down the whole line and say, ‘Hey, we can't find these. Let's find them before we send out any of this food,'?" Larett questioned.
The part that was most disturbing, Larett said, was that employees couldn't tell him exactly how many other food items could have possibly been affected."
"They didn't know how many really (blades) had broken out of there," Lopez said.
Larett and Lopez said the manager offered them a gift certificate for some free food, but they were outraged he didn't notify other customers in the restaurant.
"I'm looking around the restaurant thinking, I noticed this was there, but what if somebody actually swallowed one and was completely unaware?" Larett said.
Rumbi company officials declined our request for an interview, but told us it came down to an inexperienced shift manager who first contacted the district manager before throwing out all of the food.
The restaurant has since disposed of hundreds of pounds of vegetables and replaced the equipment. Managers say there is zero chance another blade will be found in any other food. They've had no other reports of incidents.
Larett visited the emergency room to make sure he didn't ingest a blade. His tests came back clear. But he's still worried for everyone else who dined at Rumbi with him.
