Police in St. Catharines, Ont. are investigating after a family reported discovering several Advil pills in a previously unopened carton of ice cream.

Patrick O’Neill said his family was having dinner on Saturday night, when his sister-in-law discovered eight gel capsule Advil pills in her serving of vanilla ice cream.

"She was eating her ice cream and next thing you know she was like, 'Oh my god, what's in my mouth?'" he said. "Boom, she put it on her plate. And next thing you know another one, another one -- we ended up with eight of these 400 milligram pills on the plate."

O'Neill said the Iceberg brand of french vanilla ice cream had a plastic seal covering the carton underneath the lid, as well as an exterior seal.

"Our first reaction was, 'Whoa. Everybody stop eating ice cream,'" said O'Neill's wife Margareth Leyson.

Neither of their two young daughters ate any of the pills.

The Niagara Regional Police Service has opened an investigation into the incident and says it has contacted the manufacturer.

Iceberg is a division of Lebel Foods, based in Lachute, Que. The company did not respond to CTV Toronto’s requests for an interview.

The pill discovery has turned off the family of ice cream lovers.

"You don't want to be adding extra stress opening another box of ice cream, checking on it, making sure there's nothing in it," said Leyson.

In a news release, police said the ice cream purchased by the family had the numbers 16279 08:55 on the front of the container. The UPC code on the side of the container contained the numbers 7 7427611724 2.

With a report from Toronto's Tracy Tong