McDonald's Almost Killed Lactose-Intolerant Man, Served Hot Chocolate Instead Of Black Coffee

McDonald's issued an apology Sunday after a paramedic with severe lactose allergy nearly died when he was served hot chocolate by mistake.

George Brown visited a McDonald's outlet in Manchester, England, in March and ordered a black coffee as he suffered from a severe allergy to lactose. He was served hot chocolate with milk by mistake after which he had to be rushed to a hospital.

Speaking to the Sun, the 22-year-old old paramedic said, “I took one sip of the drink and spat it out. My tongue started swelling immediately. I was wheezing, dizzy and short of breath.”

“The risk with an allergic reaction is that they are unpredictable. You can’t tell if they’re going to get worse. A reaction like this can narrow your airways to the point where you can’t breathe – respiratory arrest – and then the heart stops – cardiac arrest – which means death. That’s the severe level it could have gone to. I could have died,” he added.

His colleague, who had accompanied him to the outlet, gave him an antihistamine to reduce the swelling following which he was rushed to a local hospital. Brown fell unconscious shortly after he arrived at the hospital. Doctors, however, managed to stabilize him. After making a recovery, Brown emailed McDonald's and received a reply from the branch's assistant manager asking him to come over to the outlet in order to get a replacement large black coffee as well as some free breakfast. The customer services sent him a meal voucher.

However, calling it the "most unfortunate error," McDonald's issued an apology Sunday stating it was "simply not good enough.”

“We absolutely recognize that this mistake was unacceptable and sincerely apologies to the customer in question. This was simply not good enough. We have a number of procedures in place to avoid inaccurate orders, but In this case these were clearly not followed,” the company said, adding, “The incident was fully investigated and the restaurant team have undergone specific additional training to ensure a mistake like this is not made again."