Canned Chinese food kills Omaha woman

[Chris_]

Nebraskan sues Wal-Mart over plastic bag's failure

An eastern Nebraska man has sued Wal-Mart, saying the failure of an overfilled plastic shopping bag led to the death of his wife.

The lawsuit was first filed in February by William Freis, of Plattsmouth, in Sarpy County but has since been moved to U.S. District Court in Omaha, the Lincoln Journal Star reported (http://bit.ly/17jlnjJ ).

The lawsuit says the bag failed on April 16, 2010, outside a Wal-Mart store in the Omaha suburb of Bellevue. The lawsuit says a cashier placed two 42-ounce cans of a La Choy product and a 2-pound bag of rice in a single bag and handed it to Lynette Freis.

The bag broke as she carried it to her car, the lawsuit says, and one of the cans fell on her right big toe, cutting and fracturing it. The injuries led to an infection that spread through her body and, despite antibiotics, hospitalizations and two surgical procedures, "ultimately resulted in her death on March 12, 2011."

Witchita Eagle

[Dori]

The cans didn't kill her.  She probably got a nasty bacteria in the wound.  Who knows where or when that happened.  I'm not sure the store should be held responsible either.  I go to a non-union store where you bag your own groceries. But even so, why didn't she ask for more bags or double bags?

 

[thundley4]

I've never had them overload a bag at Walmart.  On the contrary, it seems that they go out of their way to minimize the weight put in each bag.

[RobJohnson]

I've never had them overload a bag at Walmart.  On the contrary, it seems that they go out of their way to minimize the weight put in each bag.

I agree. I did not know you could fit 7 lbs of items in one bag. At least large items like the ones described in the article.

[jtyangel]

In my mind there's also the issue if not knowing what might have been said at the register?  Did she just tell the cashier it was ok to put them in one bag, did she even try to double bag or ask for it to be double bagged? Why didn't they use a cart in lieu of carrying it themselves? Aside from what was obviously pointed out about not knowing where or how bacteria entered her body. What was her wound care like? Was the hospital that treated her initially the point of introduction? It seems they want to go back to the source of a set of accidental circumstance that they themselves could have altered also with the use of a cart or separating the products so it seems like something difficult to win. That said I'm sure her family is grieving over what really is an unfortunate set of circumstances. My prayers for their pain at the loss is with them but this is not the right course of action. This was unfortunate but lawsuit worthy?

[marv]

Background: My first job was bagging groceries at Milgrams (an old Kansas City chain) in the fifties.

I think jtyangel has it right to ask what the lady might have said to the clerk.

Today, I always bag my own at our local grocery store here in Shell Knob....ALWAYS paper, which I bag, except that I allow the clerk to bag plastic if it's only one or two items. The big paper bags are what we used to call "fifty pound" bags. We were taught by Les Milgram (RIP) how to fill the bags, and when to double bag. And we assisted the customer to their car when needed. Sometimes we even got tips!

So I have to wonder why the law suit.

[jtyangel]

Background: My first job was bagging groceries at Milgrams (an old Kansas City chain) in the fifties.

I think jtyangel has it right to ask what the lady might have said to the clerk.

Today, I always bag my own at our local grocery store here in Shell Knob....ALWAYS paper, which I bag, except that I allow the clerk to bag plastic if it's only one or two items. The big paper bags are what we used to call "fifty pound" bags. We were taught by Les Milgram (RIP) how to fill the bags, and when to double bag. And we assisted the customer to their car when needed. Sometimes we even got tips!

So I have to wonder why the law suit.

ive done a stint as well and I've never known a Walmart cashier to overfill a bag; quite the contrary. And they have never turned down a request for double bagging or putting products in separate bags either. I guess I keep thinking even if the cashier could not anticipate this mishap then neither did the woman carrying the bags either. And as I said how many times have we as fellow customer heard someone tell a cashier to just put something in the same bag. The court would never even know the interaction between that customer and the cashier to know whose decision it was to load that bag. A far as the bag failing, you have to have lived under a rock to not know they fail sometimes and at what point does responsibility end and begin when other circumstances after even the initial injury contribute to this ladies demise including her own health? just seems like a stretch an a family wanting to make blame someone for what amounts to a tragic outcome to a regular mishap in life.

[thundley4]

Neither of the linked articles mention how long she waited before seeking medical attention.  I would think that if she saw a doctor or went to the ER soon after then they would be mentioned in a lawsuit as well. 

I wonder if she delayed treatment because it seemed like a minor injury and the infection had spread too far before she sought treatment.

[Dori]

I know a girl who got deathly ill from a small splinter (piece of fish bone) going into her foot.  She was barefoot playing ball on the beach.

She had two surgeries, a drip and a constant flushing of the wound.


 

[CG6468]

Lynette Freis' first problem was she didn't call a toe truck.

[obumazombie]

Was the toe a dromedary or Bactrian ? Or as they say at Starbaucks..."One lump or 2" ?

[CG6468]

Was the toe a dromedary or Bactrian ? Or as they say at Starbaucks..."One lump or 2" ?

Sounds like it was a bacteria.

[vesta111]

Sounds like it was a bacteria.

 No one has said if the woman spoke English, was she a new American, what kind of shoes was she wearing?

I was spider bit in my yard, in 2 days my foot turned as black as charcoal.  At least this is what the ER doctors told me.    I saw no spider, felt no sting just found the next day my foot was turning black.

All this was suppuration from the ER.   Went in and had people coming in to look at my foot, only thing I could come up with was I was bare foot in the yard and everyone jumped on that as a spider bite.  I could have run into something even in my house but  I was afraid I had the flesh eating disease.   

Interesting, no blood was drawn, just sent home with antibiotics that were so strong I received a yeast infection from hell.     The black infection was not pain full, the Yeast infection was Lord awful,
the infection in my foot cleared up quickly, the Yeast infection just got worse.

I got stubborn as no one could tell me why my foot got black so I decided to self medicate for the Yeast.    I must have eaten 20 pounds of active yogurt, even douched with it, yet I finally went back to the ER hardly able to walk.    At this point the burning and discharges  was so  much people could smell me a  block away.

One pill, what ever that was given to me in the ER cleared all that up, just one pill that I could have asked for when I was given the antibiotics.     

Lesson learned, when given any kind of antibotics, if a female ask for the anti Yeast pill.