Scorpions! Scorpions!

Customers of Wal-Mart’s European retail front Asda, may want to take a closer look at the fruit they have purchased from the chain.  A woman in Wisbech, Cambs UK got more than she bargained for when she purchased an ordinary bunch of bananas: a little scorpion!  Laura Miller returned the bananas to the store and was met with laughter from the employees; not so funny when you take into consideration that Laura is the mother of a six-month-year-old who could have been seriously hurt by the then unidentified species of scorpion. 

Laura brought the scorpion to a pet shop to ascertain it’s species.  It was determined that the scorpion was of the Israeli Gold variety which while not poisonous, has a very painful sting.  The Sun (UK) reports that an Asda spokesman had this to say of the incident:

“We have rigorous inspection processes in place from the moment our bananas are picked right the way through to reaching our shelves, so we’re scratching our heads as to how this could’ve happened,” adding: “We sell 10million bananas on a weekly basis and this is the only reported incident.”

Not so fast, unnamed Asda spokesman, ABC News reported about eight months ago about a 12-year-old girl being stung by a scorpion in a South Carolina Wal-Mart, that was hiding in a Watermelon crate.  Perhaps Wal-Mart Stores Inc. needs to take a closer look at their rigorous produce-inspection processes. Perhaps shoppers should also look into buying local produce to avoid a foreign insect invasion in their own homes!

Scorpion Found in Bananas [The Sun (UK)]

Laura Miller, 20, found the dangerous critter – which had crawled out of her fruit bowl – inside a pair of jeans.

The shocked mother-of-one went back to Asda in Wisbech, Cambs, where she had bought the bananas from.

But Laura, who has a six-month-old tot, was confronted by giggling workers.

She said: “They thought it was amusing - but they are not the ones who have a baby crawling around.

“One member of staff even said she thought it would be cool to find a scorpion.”

She snapped: “They didn’t seem concerned at all and said it was quite common to find bugs and insects in fruit.

“It really frightened me. It could have got to my daughter Grace who is six and a half months old and crawling all over the place.

“I was very upset but they just thought I was bothered about getting a refund for the bananas.”

Laura, of Friday Bridge, near Wisbech, was doing the ironing when she spotted something crawling out of a pair of jeans.

She said: “I automatically thought it was a spider and because I am terrified of spiders I steamed it with the iron.

“Then I realised it was still crawling and it crawled back up the inside of the leg and I ironed over it again so it was sandwiched between the material.

“I got a bit of kitchen roll to put it on and it was then I realised it wasn’t a spider. I showed it to my dad and he said it was a scorpion and it is usually found in fruit.”

Laura then took it to a pet shop to have it analysed.

They said it was an Israeli Gold scorpion which has a very painful sting.

An Asda spokesman said: “The picture that Laura gave us was of a scorpion that is not native to Cameroon or the African continent.

“Given that we source all of our bananas from these places, we’re confused as to how this could have been found in her bunch of bananas.”

He added: “We have rigorous inspection processes in place from the moment our bananas are picked right the way through to reaching our shelves, so we’re scratching our heads as to how this could’ve happened.

“We sell 10million bananas on a weekly basis and this is the only reported incident.

“It goes without saying that we’re very sorry indeed for any upset this may have caused.

“We’ve given Laura a double refund, but if she would like to come into the store to discuss this matter further, our store manager would be more than happy to accommodate.”

Posted by Luke West on Tuesday, December 02, 2008

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