School bans spicy Doritos Roulette after student stops breathing
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Doritos Roulette tortilla chips may really be too hot to handle.
A U.K. school has banned the chips after the product allegedly caused a student to stop breathing.
Beth Laybourn, a 14-year-old student at George Pindar School in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, complained of a burning in her throat before she stopped breathing after eating the spicy chips, the Sun reported.
“At first it wasn’t that hot. We carried on going round and I started sweating and a moment later I felt my throat burning,” she said.
“I started retching and ran to the toilet and was sick. I had four mugs of milk and my throat still wouldn’t stop burning. I couldn’t breathe properly and I really thought I was going to die.”
Laybourn, who is asthmatic, was eating the chips with her brother and a friend. One in six chips in a bag of the Frito-Lay snack measures 78,000 units on the Scoville scale—10 times hotter than the average jalapeno– but every chip looks exactly the same.
After the snack attack incident, school administrators banned the chips from school grounds and issued the following warning to parents:
“DANGEROUS DORITOS: Parents and carers, please be aware that the new Doritos Roulette crisps are not recommended for children. The crisps contain extra hot chips and it has come to our attention that they can cause severe distress, particularly to those sensitivities, allergies or breathing problems.”
A school administrator acknowledged that the student to stopped breathing had a “pre-existing respiratory condition which clearly made them sensitive to the hot element of the Doritos chip,” but still decided to ban the chips, according to The Sun.
Doritos Roulette chips were released in the U.S. in April claiming that the fiery chip would “leave you close to tears.”
Frito Lay spokesman told The Telegraph that people sensitive to spicy foods should heed the warning label.
“We warn people to expect a seriously spicy experience with Doritos Roulette and we make this clear on the pack and in our adverts,” said the spokesperson.
“The front of the pack states ‘Warning: Some of these chips are ultra spicy’, and we also warn that Doritos Roulette are not recommended for young children.”