Birthday Drink Goes Horribly Wrong

A bar in England was just fined $155,000 for serving a drink with liquid nitrogen and girl had to have her stomach removed.  Gaby Scanlon was celebrating her 18th birthday in Lancaster,England two years ago. To celebrate, Oscar's Wine Bar gave her a free drink . . . the Nitro – Jägermeister (basically Jäger with some liquid nitrogen on top to create a cloud of smoke.  Sort of like dry ice.)

Liquid nitrogen is nasty, super cold stuff.  They use it to freeze off warts, among other things.  A health and safety inspector had warned them about serving it, and the bar was supposed to make people wait ten seconds before drinking it. But staff told Gaby to drink it before it evaporated.  And she did . . . so it froze and killed her internal tissue, kind of like getting internal frostbite only to the 10^th power..

Her stomach expanded, got perforated, and doctors had to remove her stomach in emergency surgery.  Then they built a direct connection between her esophagus and her bowels, and she spent three weeks in the hospital.

So if a bartender tries to push a weird, smoky cocktail at you this Halloween, run away. run far, run fast.