He started spitting blood after eating a dessert at SC mall. Now he’s suing
A South Carolina man suffered a laceration in his mouth after eating a dessert made with liquid nitrogen, which he purchased at an Upstate mall, according to a lawsuit.
While visiting Greenville’s Haywood Mall on April 29, Russell Lane Mattison Jr. went to the Dragon Breath kiosk and bought the business’ staple treat — a type of frozen dessert made from cereal dipped in liquid nitrogen, according to a lawsuit filed by Mattison in Greenville County Circuit Court. The liquid nitrogen in the dessert item produces vapors that give the appearance of smoke coming from the consumer’s mouth.
When the Anderson County resident ate the frozen treat, he experienced “sudden and intense pain” in his mouth, the complaint states. He realized his mouth was filled with blood from an ulcer on the inside of his cheek.
“I started feeling around my cheek with my tongue and noticed the blood pouring out!” Mattison wrote in a Facebook the day of the event, which has since been shared more than 1,500 times.
Mattison said he stood over a trash can spitting until he could get the bleeding to stop, he told FOX Carolina.
He sought medical help, and was told the injury to his mouth was caused by the Dragon Breath he consumed, the lawsuit states. Over the next few days, he continued experiencing pain, bleeding and swelling from the laceration in his mouth.
The lawsuit seeks damages for Mattison’s physical pain, weight loss and mental anguish, and names several defendants, including Dragon Breath and Haywood Mall.
There were no written warnings to alert the kiosk’s customers of the potential danger of the food, and Mattison was not asked to sign a waiver before purchasing or eating the dessert, according to the complaint. He also says he received no instructions on how to consume it.
A representative for Simon Property Group, which owns Haywood Mall and is named as a defendant in the suit, declined to comment for this story. Greenville attorney John O’Rourke is listed in Greenville County court records as a defendant attorney; however, attempts to reach him Tuesday were unsuccessful.
“My main goal is to get the word out,” Mattison told The Greenville News. “I don’t want anyone else getting hurt from it. I couldn’t imagine that happening to my son, my 4-year-old.”
Other people have been seriously injured after ingesting liquid nitrogen.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel reported last week that a Dragon Breath kiosk at a Tennessee mall — which also is owned by Simon — closed in July following reports of two Florida children being injured in separate instances after they ate the liquid nitrogen treats.
In one of those incidents, a 14-year-old girl burned her thumb after handling a product that contained liquid nitrogen — and also was called Dragon Breath — at a fair in Florida, according to NBC News.
In 2014, a 61-year-old Florida woman was hospitalized for five days after drinking a cocktail that contained liquid nitrogen, The Miami Herald reported. The drink, which was served to her by a bartender at a fundraiser, burned holes in the woman’s stomach and esophagus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers nitrogen “direct food substances affirmed as generally recognized as safe.” The FDA goes on to say the chemical “is used in food at levels not to exceed current good manufacturing practice.”