Local

3-year-old hospitalized after mistakenly being served alcohol at local restaurant

MONROEVILLE, Pa. — A three year old little girl spent hours in Children’s Hospital on Sunday evening after her mother says she was mistakenly served alcohol at a Monroeville restaurant.

“She had to have an IV in her arm that was the whole size of the palm of her hand, which was really said. It made me cringe just seeing that,” Cain said.

Monday, Ashley held her daughter close as she told me how her daughter was accidentally served sake at Saga Hibachi Steakhouse in Monroeville.

Ashley said it happened as the chef cooked and performed for their table, and squirted sake into the adults’ mouths, and what he apparently thought was pink lemonade to the children.

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“There was a bottle of pink lemonade and one bottle of sake. They both look similar. They were both in a condiment squirt bottle. After the first two or three times, she started getting a disgusted look on her face, and were like, something is not right,” Ashley said.

Ashley told Channel 11, Marley started to get sick.

“Ten to 15 minutes later she had really, really bad diarrhea. She started acting woozy, and babbling about I don’t know what. You could definitely tell she was off,” Ashley said.

The family first brought Marley to UPMC East, where there was a long wait, so they went to Children’s Hospital. Ashley said the alcohol in her daughter’s system was undetectable because too much time had passed.

Channel 11 went to the restaurant in Monroeville Monday afternoon, where the manager took full ownership of what happened.

“When it happened, he grabbed the wrong bottle, and gave it to the kids. It is our fault. It’s horrifying. We are truly sorry this happened. We will go step-by-step to make sure this will never happen again,” Restaurant manager, David Wang said.

Ashley’s hopes no other parent will have to experience this.

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“I hope [they] take the necessary precautions, and you change the bottles to make sure this never happens again,” she said.

It’s unclear if the chef will face any criminal charges, but Wang did say he is suspended from work.