Bar fined $155K after drink 'explodes' teen's stomach

Gaby Scanlon, now 20, went to Oscar's Wine Bar and Bistro in Lancaster to celebrate her 18th birthday on October 4, 2012.  The legal drinking age in the U.K. is 18. After taking a "Nitro-Jägermeister" shot, smoke rushed out of her mouth and nose and she described feeling immediate pain in her stomach.

“Smoke was coming from my nose and mouth. Straight away I knew something was not right. My stomach expanded. The manager said nothing about waiting for it to die down,” Scanlon said in a court hearing Thursday.

Scanlon underwent emergency, life-saving surgery to have her stomach and small bowel attached to her esophagus removed, according to The Guardian.

Company director for the bar, Andrew Dunn, said he saw similar cocktails from a London hotel and “found them alluring and was ‘intrigued by the dramatic effect’,” The Guardian reports.

The bar’s training notes on how to serve the cocktail “were said to have been ‘loose’, with staff told to wait 10 seconds until the liquid nitrogen had boiled off before consumption,” The Guardian reports.

When a bartender handed Scanlon the cocktail she was told to “drink it while it’s still smoking,” one of Scanlon's friends said in court according to The Guardian.

The family who owns the bar said they were “mortified” over the incident and apologized to Scanlon and her family, The Guardian reports.

Read more at theguardian.com