Dry ice as ‘mouth freshener’: How a mix-up by Gurugram eatery left 5 hospitalised

People frequently use mouth fresheners to lift their spirits following a satisfying meal.

However, consuming mukhwas turned out to be a nightmare for five individuals in Gurugram.

Five people were hospitalised after ingesting what they were told was mouth freshener at a restaurant Saturday night.

According to the police, it appears that the waiter served them dry ice by mistake.

Let’s take a closer look.

What happened?

At around 9.30 pm, the five — Neha Sabarwal, Manika Goenka, Pritika Rustagi, Deepak Aroda, and Himani — were eating dinner at Laforessta café in Sector 90 with other people.

Ankit Kumar, a group member and the case’s complainant, said that a waiter gave them mouth fresheners after they finished their meal.

“Upon consuming it, they experienced a burning sensation in their mouths, followed by bleeding… They started throwing up blood. I did not consume the mouth freshener as I was holding my one-year-old daughter, Durvaksi, in my lap,” said the Greater Noida resident in his complaint, according to The Indian Express.

As per NDTV, in a video recording by Kumar, his friends, and his wife can be seen screaming and crying in pain. Then, as a woman puts ice in her mouth and keeps saying, “It’s burning,” one of the men throws up on the restaurant floor.

“We don’t know what they have mixed (in the mouth freshener). Everyone here is vomiting. They have cuts on their tongues. Their mouths are burning. Don’t know what type of acid they have given us,” he adds.

Five people have been hospitalized after eating Mouth Freshner at a Gurugram Restaurant 😱 pic.twitter.com/gsFFiAxVy1

— Rosy (@rose_k01) March 4, 2024

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Kumar then called the police and an ambulance to take his friends to the nearby Aarvy Hospital in Sector 90.

Kumar filed a complaint stating that when they asked the waiter what was supplied to them, he showed them an open polythene package, which he then took. He added that after looking at the “mouth freshener” sample, the doctor declared it to be dry ice.

“The doctor advised us to hand over the packet to the hospital… He said it could be fatal,” Kumar said while filing a complaint against the restaurant.

According to police, they have filed a First Information Report (FIR) at the Kherki Daula police station under the IPC sections of causing hurt by poisoning and criminal conspiracy against the waiter who gave them the substance.

The doctor claimed in the FIR that the patients had chemical burn poisoning, as per the report by Indian Express.

“We have sent the sample to FSL to ascertain what the substance was. Prima facie, it is dry ice and the staff mistook it for mouth freshener. Three people are still admitted to the hospital, but their condition is better,” the police said.

Gagan, the manager of the eatery, claimed that the incident was caused by staff negligence.

“The incident took place after the dinner and the staff gave out the substance. Police are taking action against the staffer and they have taken samples,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper,

Is dry ice safe?

Dry ice is solid carbon dioxide, the same molecule we exhale in gaseous form.

It is a lethal substance.

According to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), dry ice is commonly used as a cooling agent for food products like ice cream, frozen desserts, etc. It is frequently used for food items that need to be cold or frozen, without the use of mechanical cooling.”

With a surface temperature of -78.5 degrees Celsius, it can cause severe frostbite and skin burns if touched without protective gloves. Additionally, it doesn’t melt into liquid when heated and instead changes into gas, which can cause fatalities in confined spaces and explosions in sealed containers.

According to FSSAI, it should be used or exposed to open air in a ventilated environment.

“If not handled properly it may endanger human health, as it sublimes into large quantities of carbon dioxide gas which could pose a danger of breathlessness (hypercapnia),” it added.

What happens if you ingest dry ice?

ThoughCo claims that if consumed, it can burn your oesophagus, rupture your stomach, result in serious internal injuries, and even prove fatal.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, inhaling dry ice can cause asphyxia, hypoxia, and hypoxemia.

It may even choke you. It can reduce the oxygen in the lungs when ingested.

In August 2018, two women were found unresponsive in a car along with four coolers of dry ice in Pierce County, Washington. According to CNN, the car owner called 911 when he found his wife and his mother on the side of the road blocks from his home. His mother, 77, reportedly died of suffocation, and his wife was found in critical condition.

Dr Kris Permentier, head of the ER department at Belgium’s az Sint-Blasius hospital, told the outlet, “Your heart and your brain are going to lack an amount of oxygen needed to survive. You will go in a coma very quickly, and your heart is going to stop beating. You feel sleepy, dizzy, but you don’t have the intention to open up the air. You don’t have the strength or the brain capacity to open up the doors or the windows.”

The Grunge cited the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment as saying, that dry ice can be used in smaller quantities as carbon dioxide cannot intoxicate one at lower concentrations as normal air is composed of 0.04 per cent carbon dioxide.

With inputs from agencies