A 6-year-old girl choked on pieces of a face mask that she found inside a chicken nugget that her mother got for her from McDonald’s.

Laura Arber, the mother, said that she made the discovery in at least 2 of the 20 chicken nuggets that she bought for her children from McDonald’s in Aldershot, Hampshire.

The 32-year-old mother took 3 of her 4 children to the restaurant to pick up the order before they headed back to the family home to enjoy their meal.

As the family sat down to enjoy the nuggets, Maddie, her 6-year-old daughter, had a hard time eating.

Explaining what happened, Laura said:

My little daughter just started choking and I put my fingers down her throat to loop it out there was just blue with the sick. I thought what on earth is this? I didn’t even think it could be the chicken nugget but looked over at the box and all you could see was this blue coming out of another chicken nugget in the box of 20. And the mask is cooked into it, like a part of the mixture and it’s clearly a mask. You can see the seam and how solid it is in there.

After speaking to the branch on the phone, Laura headed down to the store to speak with the manager.

The manager of the fast-food chain said that the nuggets were not cooked on site.

The mother did not receive an apology from the restaurant.

Laura added:

And the worst thing was that they carried on serving them. Before I left I said: ‘Are you going to keep serving them? And they were carrying on serving them and that was the big thing for me. I just couldn’t believe the way the management were handling it. What if I had walked out of the room and my daughter had choked? She could have died. It’s a split second thing. And I am just thinking, we have just come out of a pandemic and there is a face mask in my child’s chicken nugget.

McDonald’s released a statement about the incident after the incident was shared on social media by news agencies.

The spokesperson of McDonald’s said:

We are very sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. Food safety is of the utmost importance to us and we place great emphasis on quality control, following rigorous standards to avoid any imperfections. When the matter was brought to the attention of our staff, we apologised, offered a full refund and asked the customer to return the item so we could further investigate the matter and isolate the affected product.

Luckily, Maddie, the 6-year-old daughter of Laura, did not completely choke on the mask that she found in her chicken nugget.