He still loves it – with an outsize exception.
A Rockland County man sued McDonald’s in February 2021, claiming the wrong slice of cheese in his Big Mac nearly killed him. He still eats at greasy fast food restaurants, but only orders plain burgers and doesn’t eat out as much as he used to.
“I’m back at McDonald’s,” Charles Olsen, who has a severe milk allergy, told the Post this week. “But I no longer trust McDonald’s to follow order details such as no cheese.
According to a recently filed lawsuit, Olsen suffered an anaphylactic reaction after taking a bite of the famous Mickey D’s burger. The accident rushed him to the hospital, where he thought he might not survive.
“Right now I order a plain burger with fries and nothing on it. Just the patty and the bun,” he said. “We can’t risk it happening again.”
Olsen said this week that nearly three years after the disturbing incident, she still avoids eating out at most restaurants. Olsen, 28, explained that it started as a “normal night” with her friends and she ordered at her “go-to place.” -To a place. ”
He said he regularly ordered from DoorDash because he had made his usual request for “no cheese” “many times.” When the food arrived and he opened the burger, there was no sign that the order had failed.
“When I got my food and opened the burger, it looked just like it always did when I ordered it. I didn’t see any cheese melting on the side,” Olsen said in a written response through his attorney. . “I thought it would be similar to the last time I’ve eaten there.”
However, the reaction occurred immediately and the condition rapidly deteriorated.
“I was frustrated that McDonald’s had gotten my order wrong,” he recalled. “But as my symptoms worsened, I started to worry and realized how bad it was.
“When I felt my throat close up and had trouble breathing, I knew I might not make it.”
Olsen and his girlfriend said they took an Uber to the hospital because they thought an ambulance would take too long. He said about a dozen doctors and nurses surrounded him and gave him a cocktail of epinephrine, Benadryl and steroids, which took effect before he needed to be intubated.
His lawyers say the order came from the now-closed McDonald’s at 355 Eighth Avenue.
McDonald’s declined to comment when contacted about the lawsuit earlier this month, but the franchise owners sent a statement saying they take the complaints “seriously” and are reviewing the allegations.
Olsen’s girlfriend, Alexandra DiBenedetto, told the Post the ordeal was “horrifying.”
“It was really terrible having to watch him suffer like that and it got more and more scary as the reaction progressed,” she said.
“It’s never easy to watch a loved one suffer, let alone struggle for their life,” she added. “I stayed up all night scared just watching him make sure everything was okay.”
In addition to cautiously continuing to eat Golden Arches’ bland burgers, Olsen now avoids restaurants that might serve a lot of cheese. He says this is because the Asian restaurants he frequents don’t use much cheese or dairy products.
“I hope my story raises awareness about how serious food allergies are. Something needs to be done,” he said. “Something needs to be done to prevent something like this from happening to others. Employees need to be better trained. Restaurants can do better. We have an obligation to do better.”
His lawyer, Jolie Lange, stressed that restaurants need to listen more to their customers and warned that food allergies are a “life-or-death issue.”
“I’m glad Charles survived,” said Lange, who specializes in food allergy litigation. “This shocking event could have been a terrible tragedy.”
