The Case of the Subway Knife

This Week’s Wacky Wednesday: The Case of the Subway Knife

The title of this article is accurate, but it’s probably not what you think. There was no knife-wielding maniac stalking the subway looking for victims, at least not in this instance. This time, the blade wielder did not even have hands, which makes sense because it was the bread in a Subway sandwich.

Please Hold the Sharp Steel

In 2008, John Agnesini purchased the sandwich at a location in New York City for his lunch. Once he started eating, he knew that something wasn’t right with his sandwich. The taste was off. When he looked at the sandwich a bit closer, he was shocked at what he saw. Inside of the bread was a serrated blade that measured seven inches long. Needless to say, John did not request the sandwich artist to put this topping on his meal.

He’s fortunate that he started eating his sandwich at the end where there wasn’t a protruding knife. If he had started eating the other side of the sandwich, there is a good chance that it cou

ld have sliced through the soft insides of his mouth. He did, however, bite into the knife handle, which was partially melted. This likely meant that it had somehow become baked into the bread. Luckily, he did not swallow any part of the melted handle.

Even though he didn’t swallow the knife, he says that he still became ill after eating. It caused him to have severe stomach problems for several hours, and he believes that this was caused by food poisoning from the blade. While it certainly could have been food poisoning, there may have also been some psychosomatic issues at play just from knowing what he had been eating and how dangerous it could have been.

Initially, when he tried to talk with Subway about the incident, there was not a big response according to his lawyer. The attorney found that other people around the country had dealt with similar problems and vowed to investigate to see if there were health code violations in other areas.

John and his attorney went on to sue Subway for $1 million. He came away from the case with just $20,000. Given the level of danger and the illness, this seems like a paltry sum for something so serious.

In this case, it’s fortunate that the only ill effect John suffered was food poisoning. It had the potential to be far worse than it was. However, even though there may not have been too serious of an injury, you can imagine that there are probably some lasting mental effects of finding a knife in your sandwich. He probably doesn’t head to Subway for lunch any longer, and he’s probably wary of just about every piece of food that he puts into his mouth. Most people would be.

The Dangers of Eating Fast Food

Eating, particularly eating out, is far more dangerous than many people realize. While you won’t always have to deal with knives in your bread, there have been plenty of other cases where dangerous items have been found inside of meals, and sometimes ingested.

People have found bandages in their pizza toppings, teeth in French fries, plastic in ice cream, needles in breakfast sandwiches, and more. There is even a case where a man in Arby’s found a piece of human flesh in his chicken sandwich. An employee had cut themselves when slicing lettuce and the skin wound up in the sandwich. This is just a sampling of all of the weird things found in fast food. When you get hungry, be careful out there, and remember to always look for knives and human flesh.