[web-heads] Fwd: Hi Five?? No, Hi Four!!

[Gene Spafford <spaf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: "Jim Schindler" <Jimschin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: March 24, 2005 1:23:54 PM EST
>
> (Surely there's a better recipe!)   
>  
>                                       Posted on Thu, Mar. 24, 2005

>  
>
>
>
>       It's official: That was a finger in chili
>
>
>                                             By Dan Reed
>                                                      Mercury News
>               http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/11217561.htm
>
>  
>
> Wendy's chili is  not made out of people -- well, it is, but just a little bit. Santa Clara
>  County health officials confirmed Wednesday that the thing a woman bit on when
>  enjoying her chili at a Monterey Highway Wendy's was, in fact, a human finger.
>   
> They're not sure whose. It was about an inch-and-a-half, with a longish, nicely
>  groomed nail.   And while it gave the woman -- Anna Ayala, 39, of Las Vegas --
>  a bad case of the willies, it likely caused no physical illness, officials said.
>  
> That's because the finger was safely cooked, simmering along at 170 degrees with
>  more traditional chili ingredients, such as tomatoes, beef and beans.
>  
> About 7:20 p.m. Tuesday, Ayala, in town with her family to drop off her in-laws
>  who live in San Jose, scooped up a mouthful of chili.
>  
> It was her first visit to a Wendy's. "I'm more of a Carl's Jr. person," she said
>  Thursday night.  "Suddenly something crunchy was in my mouth," she said,
>  "and I spit it out."  After much examination, she and her tablemates realized just
>  what the special ingredient was. Then the vomiting commenced.
>  
> Police and county health officials were called to the Wendy's, but no one there was
>  missing any digits.  "We had everyone kind of show us they had 10 fingers, and
>  everything was OK there," said Ben Gale, director of the county's Department of
>  Environmental Health.
>  
> In confirming it was a finger, the county medical examiner also found that it wasn't
>  badly decomposed and had a solid set of fingerprints. Conceivably, officials said,
>   police could lift a print and perhaps match it to a partially fingered person through
>   a database.
>  
> For now, officials figure -- since it was a jagged cut -- it may have happened on a
>  meat grinder.  In any case, the county shut the Wendy's for a while and impounded
>  all the remaining chili and all the ingredients used to make it. They hope to track all
>  the fixings to try to find the source of the finger.
>  
> Wendy's spokesman Bob Bertini said never in the fast-food chain's 35 years has a
>  body part showed up in the food.