Fast Food Nightmare Fuel
Many years ago while working in a busy branch of a familiar fastfood chain, I saw an incident that has remained with me to this day, etched forever into my mind, something I will never forget.
The branch I worked in was on the busiest street in the capital city. It was always incredibly busy at lunchtime. For about 2hrs every day it was literally non-stop, and any unexpected delay could cause backlogs and irrate customers demanding to know where their food was.
In busy, chaotic kitchens, sometimes things get dropped. Sometimes they get picked up and dusted off and used as normal. Sometimes they remain on the floor, and get swept up later.
On this particular day, a frozen quarter-pounder fell unnoticed on the floor during the lunchtime rush. As one of my colleagues was walking past the open clam-shell grill, he slipped on the stray burger, instinctively putting out his arm to stop himself falling. His outstretched arm came into contact with ferociously hot surface of the grill, and stuck! His skin literally fused to the hotplate, all along his forearm, from wrist to elbow. He was screaming, but couldn't remove his hand as the skin was stuck fast, as his flesh continued to sizzle. Another employee pulled his arm up for him, leaving behind a sloughed off ribbon of skin the length of his forearm. He was quickly given what first aid was available, and taken to receive medical care.
The floor manager meanwhile, picked up the grill scraping tool, and proceeded to scrape the human skin from the grill as if it were the charred remains of the previous burger, and continued cooking on the hotplate as if nothing happened.