Nasty Surprise Pops Out Of Cracker Kit

Illawarra Mercury

Wednesday December 24, 2008

By MICHELLE WEBSTER

A BAD Christmas surprise would usually involve dodgy gifts such as orange socks or a Paris Hilton album.

But Kanahooka mum Maree McGoldrick got an even more unpleasant shock last weekend when her 15-year-old daughter discovered a sinister object inside a do-it-yourself Christmas cracker kit.

"I was making them with my daughters when we discovered that in one of the packets there was a huge blade, it wasn't like a small razor blade, it was one of those huge stanley knife blades," she said.

"It fell out of the packet and missed my daughter's foot by centimetres, and she was barefoot at the time."

Having purchased the kit at a Dapto discount store, Ms McGoldrick said she did not blame the retailer for the incident and believed the blade entered the packaging by mistake in Indonesia, the item's country of origin.

"If I took it back to the shop I think the lady would be shocked but it's not their fault," she said.

"The supplier is probably packing thousands of these and being flat it has just been scooped up."

Thankful her three children were not injured by the rusty 10cm blade, Ms McGoldrick said she wanted to warn others about the potential for products to contain hazardous foreign bodies.

"The irony of it is that you buy a Christmas cracker for a bit of a surprise, but this was not the kind of surprise we were expecting," she said.

"I just wanted to tell other people to be careful of things they buy."

Consumers with a product safety concern should contact the NSW Office of Fair Trading on 133 220.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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