NORFOLK - Elizabeth Perkins says she found more than just soda inside a bottle of Dr. Pepper she bought.Floating in the bottle were two fingers from a latex glove. What's even more disgusting is that Elizabeth was actually drinking from the bottle that she had bought at a grocery store. In fact, it was almost halfway gone before she noticed the large clumps of latex.
"I took a couple of swigs of it, put the cap back on and when I arrived at work, there was something that was floating on the top that resembled, well it was just very jumbled plastic stuck together.
At first glace, Elizabeth wasn't sure what was floating in her Dr. Pepper.
She says, "At first, I thought it was some kind of worm."
After Elizabeth took a photo, she realized there were two latex glove fingers, cleanly sliced, floating in her soda.
"This is like, one and a half knuckles up on a glove. There are inch long pieces, inch and a half even, of latex glove fingertips," Elizabeth says.
Latex is obviously not an ingredient in Dr. Pepper, and that got Elizabeth wondering what else could be in the bottle.
She says, "It was awful to think that someone could have possibly lost two figures on a Dr. Pepper line and they didn't stop production or make sure none of that stuff got into the bottle is just, is disturbing to me."
Elizabeth called Dr. Pepper to let them know what she found. Dr. Pepper officials responded to Elizabeth by sending her a letter stating that they regret the inconvenience that this has caused. They also sent her a coupon for a free 12-pack of Dr. Pepper.
"They weren't necessarily interested in my welfare," Elizabeth says, "You know, did I have to go to the hospital? You know, was anything else in there? Nothing like that was asked."
Instead, the company told Elizabeth they wanted her to send the bottle back to them so that they could examine it. Elizabeth hasn't decided what she's going to do with the bottle or the latex fingertip. But she says she has learned something from this experience.
"I don't drink pop without pouring it into a see-through glass. No soda pop without a see-through glass. It's just my rule," she says.
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