JACKSON, MI -- If a person chews or finds in food a small human dismemberment, the risk of infection is almost zero, said Dr. Rami Khoury, assistant medical director of the Allegiance Health Emergency Department.

“It is more of a psychological issue,” Khoury said Thursday afternoon.

“A body part in food. It’s kind of creepy or scary.”

Khoury was asked to comment on any health concerns associated with mouthing or coming in contact with a piece of human flesh found in food.

Wednesday, 14-year-old Ryan Hart said he located a piece of a finger in a junior roast beef sandwich served Friday at the Arby's on N. West Ave. in Jackson. In his final bites, he said he tasted something like rubber and spit it out into his hand. His mother took him to Allegiance Health and was concerned he might get sick. Ryan said Wednesday he felt fine.



Khoury was speaking generally, not specifically about Ryan’s case.

The possibility of someone in such a situation contracting HIV or Hepatitis B or C, which spread through body fluids, is very low, Khoury said. The human gastrointestinal tract is technically outside the body, he said, and stomach acids kill many things.

If the dismemberment was contaminated with E. Coli or some other food-borne illness, there is a potential for sickness, he said, but the illness would be like any other food poisoning.

“It would be difficult to prove whether it was from the dismembered part or the food itself,” he said.

A person who mouths or comes in contact with a dismembered body part, should go see a doctor, Khoury said.

He said cases like the one reported last week are rare.

The police and health department reported an employee had cut herself on a meat slicer. Steve Hall, environmental health director for the health department, said he believes the employee left her station and other employees were filling an order or orders before they became aware of what happened.

After learning of the occurrence, the restaurant team stopped food production and thoroughly cleaned and sanitized the business, John Gray wrote in a statement. He is the vice president for corporate communications and public relations for Atlanta-based Arby’s Restaurant Group Inc.

"We are deeply concerned and apologetic to the guest involved in this unfortunate incident," Gray wrote in the statement.



RELATED STORIES