Maybe manufacturers of dangerous chemicals should go old school and start printing a skull and crossbones on packages again. The wife of an Australian government official is very lucky to have only burned her mouth rather than losing her life when she took a sip of a cocktail that had accidentally been adulterated with a caustic chemical.
Kara Lamond, wife of health minister Ryan Park, went out to a club in Illawarra in October of last year for some cocktails. Both women barely sipped the drinks before they experienced a severe burning sensation that sent them to the hospital for burns to their throats, lips, and their mouths.
The women had ordered margaritas with salt on the rim of the glass. They got the margaritas, but instead of salt, the barkeep accidentally crusted the rims of the glasses with caustic soda not cocktail salt.
Caustic soda is found in common household items like Drano, which is used to unclog sink pipes. It works because it’s caustic. The soda is a base, rather than an acid like vinegar. It breaks down organic material like hair clogs which is why it gets pipes whistling clean. But it is easy to see how dangerous it would be to ingest; it should not even be touched with bare skin.
Nathan Sloan, a lawyer for the New South Wales Food Authority (NSW is a state in Australia) said the incident never had to happen if the chemicals had been labeled and stored properly. If the women had taken a gulp instead of a sip, he said, the outcome could have been tragic.
So, what happened? Apparently some staff at the business did not take the steps most of us were taught to take when storing dangerous cleaning chemicals at home. Best practice for storing poisons in the home has always been to keep the chemical in its original container, so that it can be identified. One should never transfer it to an unlabeled container where it could be mistaken for a non-poisonous substance, or even for food.
That seems to be what happened at the club. A groundskeeper needed to unclog a drain so he reached for what he thought was a bin of caustic soda. But it was actually a container holding rock salt for cocktails. The groundskeeper then “topped up” the salt bin with caustic soda, leading to the dangerous mishap.
The club’s lawyer is defending the business in court, but Rajiv Baldeo admitted the business had made a serious mistake. Club CEO Glenn Ward ultimately pleaded guily to a number of charges related to selling unsafe food.
A London bar came under fire for the same mistake in 2021.
