PRPG:

Hurt By Fruit

October 3, 2018

Apples, oranges, melons, and berries—they’re sweet, delicious, nutritious…and extremely dangerous, apparently. Here are some weird news stories about people who sustained some nasty injuries courtesy of nature’s candy.

Bad Breadfruit

In December 2017, a Salt Lake City woman named Valerie Zaugg took a vacation to Hawaii, home to an exotic piece of produce called the breadfruit. As Zaugg was sitting onboard a tour bus after coming out of the Polynesian Cultural Center, an unripe breadfruit, roughly the size of a baseball suddenly came flying through the closed window. Glass scattered everywhere, and the breadfruit slammed into Zaugg’s face. “I stood up and I just felt the blood rush down my face,” Surveillance video from a nearby building showed some teenagers running away from the scene of the crime, but police never caught the culprits.

Bad Watermelon

Henry Walker was shopping in an Alabama Wal-Mart one day in 2015 when he came across a huge display of watermelons for sale, displayed on a pallet. He reached to put one in his cart, but instead the watermelons came loose, spilled off, and knocked down Walker. He fell, and his foot got stuck underneath the watermelon-covered pallet. Walker sued Wal-Mart for what he said was a dangerous display…and a jury awarded him $7.5 million.

Bad Avocados

It may not be sweet, but avocado is a fruit. It’s also enjoying a big moment—avocado toasts are a popular brunch item from coast-to-coast, and it’s the chief ingredient in guacamole, a perennial favorite. Avocados sales are up, which also means that avocado injuries are up, especially “avocado hand.” People apparently use dull knives, or too-sharp knives, and have such a hard time working through the tough-skinned, pitted fruit that their hand slips and they slice themselves, rather than the avocado. In the U.K., where a few thousand cases of “avocado hand” have been reported in the last few years, a surgeons group wants the government to place warning stickers on the fruit instructing people how to cut them properly.