Needle found in dumpling: 5-year-old child from Zhejiang cried uncontrollably after eating dumplings

On June 12th, a woman in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, was dining with her child when the child unexpectedly found a syringe needle in a dumpling and started crying uncontrollably.

June 15th, the topic “Child cries uncontrollably after eating dumplings, parent pulls out needle” appeared on the hot search list on a mainland Chinese social media platform.

According to a report by “Da An News” on June 14th, Ms. Wang from Yiwu, Zhejiang (pseudonym) dined with her 5-year-old child at a dumpling restaurant on Changchun Sixth Street in Yiwu. They ordered four different flavors of dumplings, including shepherd’s purse and fresh meat, cabbage and meat, mushroom and meat, and shrimp.

Ms. Wang said that when her child was eating the shepherd’s purse and fresh meat dumpling, the child suddenly cried uncontrollably. Initially, she thought the child had bitten his tongue, but to her surprise, she pulled out a needle from the child’s incisor, “It turned out to be a syringe needle, very thick and sharp, clearly a needle used for pigs.”

Ms. Wang expressed that she chose this restaurant because of its sign indicating that the dumplings were freshly made with pork from the forelegs. She said, “Who could have expected such an incident, it has greatly affected my child.”

Ms. Wang was terrified, worried that the needle might contain viral bacteria. She also found out that when pigs are injected, the injections are usually given in the neck area, which suggests that the meat in the dumplings might come from the neck, not the forelegs as claimed by the restaurant.

The report mentioned that nearly an hour after the incident, the manager of the dumpling restaurant arrived at the scene. Later, the manager, the child, and the parent went to the Fourth Hospital affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine for examination.

The manager explained that the needle was likely leftover from an injection given to a pig for preventive measures. However, the manager also stated that the pork supplied by the vendor was all foreleg meat, and the chain restaurant would never use neck meat.

The manager said that this was the first time such an incident had occurred. All the dumpling fillings in the restaurant are made by the manager personally, and no needles were found.

The supplier’s boss also claimed that they supplied only foreleg meat and believed the needle was similar to those used for pig vaccinations.

This incident has sparked a heated discussion on mainland Chinese social media.

“Too scary.” “Unbelievable, so frightening.” “With so many processes, how could such a large needle go unnoticed???” “No matter how the needle ended up in the pork, it should have been discovered during the grinding and dumpling-making process, as making dumpling filling and wrapping require handling where foreign objects could be detected. So, could the needle have been deliberately placed there? A premeditated act or a malicious prank.”

“If it’s bought meat, unseen; the grinder didn’t hear anything; the worker wrapping dumplings didn’t see it. How could such a large needle hide?” “After going through so many steps, not a single one noticed it. Honestly, was it really left over from an injection? It’s so long, and a dumpling is so small.” “This is outrageous! If someone ingested it, it could be fatal! Yet they talk about it so lightly!” “The possibility of it being deliberately placed there is higher. If not, how could it go unnoticed? How come it wasn’t noticed during the meat chopping process? It must have been sneaked in after wrapping the dumplings.”