Calgary woman files $2 million lawsuit against restaurant over wonton soup

A woman has filed a $2 million lawsuit claiming she was left in a coma after eating wonton soup at a Calgary restaurant.

Nicole Laurin says nearly two years ago she grabbed dinner with her husband Dwayne, something they did on an almost daily basis.

“I purchased a wonton soup, which my husband went to pick up for me, which he regularly did because it was my favourite dinner – wor wonton soup with satay sauce. I like the spice and that’s what I would have for dinner, sometimes three times a week,” Laurin said.

But she says something didn’t sit right, thinking she may have had food poisoning.

The last thing Laurin remembered after dinner was it was Halloween night before she went to bed early.

“I remember waking up in the hospital with a respirator and my sister and my whole family were there, I didn’t know what happened but then they asked me and they started telling me that I was sleeping for five or six days. I can’t remember.”

Nicole said she was in a coma for nearly a week and needed dialysis.

She says the doctors told her it was something quite serious.

“They told me I had E. coli. I still remember them coming to me and asked me if I had I travelled and where I had been, to find out the source.”

The restaurant in question, Saigon Bistro on MacLeod Trail, is still open and Alberta Health Services has not received any complaints about the food, nor did it get any reports of illness at the time of the alleged incident.

But the Vietnamese and Thai restaurant was handed a statement of claim by Laurin for more than $2 million.

In it, it says “Laurin subsequently became very ill suffering severe abdominal cramps over several days after which she became unconscious or comatose and had to be taken to hospital where she was forced to remain for several months.”

The claim questions the cleanliness of the restaurant and if the food was cooked or stored at adequate temperatures.

A response from the restaurant has not been filed in court.

Laurin is hoping for $1.5 million in prospective loss of income.

During routine inspections of the restaurant earlier this year, AHS noted ‘mouse droppings throughout the facility and on top of the dishwasher.’

It also found there was no adequate sanitizer to clean the utensils and surfaces but none of these allegations have been proven in court.

No one else has reported being sick and repeated calls to Saigon Bistro have not been returned.

The meat shop where the wontons came from is also named in the suit.