It’s business as usual at the Independence McDonald’s where one of its managers says he got pesticide poisoning and is concerned he may not be the only one.
On Wednesday at 11 p.m. William Wayman showed up for his overnight shift as a manager at the McDonald’s on 23rd and Sterling.
When Wayman walked in, he said he saw the manager before him set up three bug bombs.
"I had seen him setting up the foggers and after he set up the foggers he just immediately walked out the door and left,” Wayman said.
According to him, the bug bombs were placed by the ice cream machine, another by a trash can near the the entrance and a third by the men’s bathroom.
"I ended up shutting the store down at 11:30 after I contacted poison control and a couple of other 24 hour restaurants to see you what they thought about the situation and they advised me that it's a health code violations and that I need to shut down immediately,” Wayman said.
But by then it was too late for him.
“I'd seen it in the air with me being up front where is that it's very burning my eyes and I started crying,” Wayman said.
Wayman said he threw away cups, plastic ware, straws and napkins that were exposed to the bug bombs before reopening before breakfast. He went to the hospital where doctors told him he had pesticide poisoning. Wayman filed a complaint with the Independence Health Department.
"Anytime we receive a complaint what we do is we start the case we go out to our inspector to look for any violations that they can observe we try to contact the complainant and try to get as much information as we can and follow up as appropriate,” Christina Heinen, the assistant health director for Independence, Missouri said.
41 Action News found this McDonald’s health inspection.
Three were done in 2015 and one last year. None of them show a problem with pests. But Wayman said gnats are an issue.
“Since I've been there they've had Ecolab out twice for our gnat problem and it seems not to of helped out at all so they took it upon themselves to buy foggers from Walmart or Dollar Tree or something and set them off themselves,” Wayman said.
In a statement from a McDonald's restaurant representative:
"Our first and foremost concern is for the safety of our customers and employees. Upon awareness of this incident, we took immediate action. We are working closely with the employee and health department to address the situation and ensure that safety protocols are in place.
We remain committed to serving the highest quality of food and maintaining our customer’s confidence and our employees who serve them. The restaurant was closed, no food was served and proper protocol for clean up was in place before opening."
Wayman said that wasn’t the case initially, which is why he posted this message on Facebook.
“Just to make the community aware of exactly what kind of fast food establishment they're getting food from. That they're children are eating at the potential of customers. That I did serve in the 30 minutes that I did take orders. That they could have the poisoning themselves,” Wayman said.
41 Action News did ask the health department if any customers who visited the McDonald’s on Wednesday between 11 and 11:30 p.m. should be worried about any exposure but they refused to comment citing this is still an ongoing investigation.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this story attributed a statement to Trozzolo. The statement is from a McDonald's restaurant representative.
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Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com
