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SALT LAKE CITY -- A mother had to rush her teenage daughter to the hospital after the teen bit into a pill found in a bag of trail mix.
The teenager bought the trail mix from a Whole Foods Market store in Sugarhouse on Friday, Jan. 28. She snacked on the trail mix over the weekend and then finished it off Sunday night.
"She dumped the rest of it in her hand and threw it in her mouth," said the girl's mother, who did not want to be identified.
She says the last bite made the girl sick.
"She was chewing it up and it was seedy and chewy, fruity, and she didn't notice the capsule right away," the mother said.
That clear capsule was mixed in with the sunflower and pumpkin seeds and dried fruit. She spit it out, only to find a second capsule containing a mysterious green powder in the prepackaged bag.
"We were really panicked immediately that she had ingested this, because it was obviously not supposed to be in there," the girl's mom said.
She called the Poison Control Center and rushed her daughter to the emergency room.
"I was terrified," said the girl's mother. "She had numbness down both sides of her face and neck and into her shoulders for about four hours and some burning in her throat and in her stomach."
The teenager underwent tests, but she is doing fine now.
Neither the family nor police know what was in the capsule, but officials are sending it to the crime lab to be analyzed.
The teen's mom says consumers need to know about this incident.
KSL found the same brand of trail mix the teen bought at another Whole Foods location in the Valley.
A few hours later, a spokesperson for the chain said the product is now temporarily off all Utah store shelves. She said the company is trying to figure out what happened.
That's what the teen's mom would like to see for now.
"I'd just like to get the product, what the product was, out there so that people can avoid it ‘til we figure out what happened, what it is, what was in it and how it got in there," the mother said.
She also contacted Enjoy Life Natural Brands, who manufactures the trail mix. KSL also contacted the Illinois-based company. They released a statement Monday afternoon, saying it is conducting a thorough investigation. Enjoy Life Foods expressed concern for the health of that teenager, and also said it is working with Whole Foods and Salt Lake City police to discover exactly how this happened.
E-mail: syi@ksl.com
