Columbus woman sues billion dollar company after contracting Salmonella

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – A Columbus woman is filing a federal lawsuit against a billion dollar food company.

Bailey Finch said she was diagnosed with salmonella after eating contaminated Goldfish Crackers last month.

“I’m still very weak and I’m definitely not what I used to be before the incident,” said Finch.

The incident she’s referring to happened on July 19th, when Finch said she ate Goldfish Crackers while at work.

Not too long afterwards she began to feel sick, so she went to the hospital.

“DCH was stunned, said Finch. “They saw that my body was shutting down, that the organs were starting to not work, that they could not get IV’s in me but they did not know why,” said Finch.

The illness took a toll on her body, so badly, that at one point doctors told her she had only 24 hours to live.

“I had to make a phone call to my six-year-old daughter and I had to tell her that I loved her and that she meant the whole world to me,” Finch recalled. “I had to tell her that mommy will always be with her but not knowing if I would. I did not know if I would make it to her first day of first grade.”

The 26-year-old mother said it was shocking and devastating feeling when she found out she’d been diagnosed.

In July, Pepperidge Farm launched a nationwide recall on its Goldfish Crackers.

Finch said the crackers she grabbed should not have been on the shelves to begin with.

Now she and her legal team are filing a lawsuit, seeking compensation.

“The claim is that it’s an unsafe product that was distributed by Pepperidge Farm as well as their whey protein manufacturer,” said Patrick Wooten, attorney with Schwartz and Associates, P.A. “It’s a claim against them for that, it’s a claim against them for medical damages and lost wages, for pain and suffering, for the emotional distress that she’s gone through.”

“This is not some rare thing on specialty shelves that nobody eats, everybody eats goldfish,” said Bobby Lemoine, attorney with Cory Watson Attorneys.

“I try not to be angry because I do believe God saved my life, but I expect when I go to a grocery store that the food that I eat is safe for me to eat,” Finch expressed.

The Columbus woman said she’s still a little weak but is on track for making a successful recovery.

The mother was also able to send her daughter off for her first day of school.

WCBI reached out to Pepperidge Farm for a comment on this issue, we’ve yet to hear back from them.