Woman sues Olive Garden for hot, ‘defective’ stuffed mushrooms: ‘Death was imminent’

A Texas woman is suing Olive Garden after she burned herself on stuffed mushrooms.

The event kicked off a string of medical mishaps, according to the woman's lawsuit.

What are the details?

According to KTVT-TV, Danny Howard visited a Tarrant County Olive Garden in August 2017.

She ordered the stuffed mushrooms appetizer, and when they arrived, she took a bite. They were apparently extremely hot — something Howard complained the restaurant did not inform her about.

The suit said that there was "no admonishment or warning" that the appetizers were "particularly hot or carried the risk to cause severe burns."

"The stuffed mushrooms in question were defective and unsafe for their intended purposes at the time," a statement read, according to the station.
Howard reportedly began to choke on the mushrooms, unable to breathe or speak. She hopped out of her seat and "frantically shuffled through the restaurant in need of help" and wound up vomiting at the kitchen station. In the course of her vomiting, she "dislodged the burning mushroom."

Howard left the restaurant and drove home. She then decided that she needed medical care, so she visited a nearby emergency room outlet. While Howard was on her way, she said that her throat began to close and "frantically" phoned 911 because she believed that "death was imminent" and she would suffocate.

Howard was taken to Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth and then flown to Parkland Hospital's Burn Unit in Dallas.

What else?

Howard filed the lawsuit on March 8 in the Tarrant County District Court. Her suit alleges that the restaurant exhibited negligence by not warning her about the mushrooms' temperature. She is asking for damages in the amount of $200,000 to $1 million.

At the time of this writing, Olive Garden has yet to issue a statement on the pending lawsuit.