A US Woman Died In A Restaurant Bathroom & Diners Are Shocked That It Stayed Open For Hours
"We thought we were doing the right thing," the manager said.
Outside of Jasper's Restaurant.
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The internet is shook over a bizarre incident at a popular restaurant in Maryland, where someone died in the women's room and the owners kept the place open for hours before she was taken away.
The incident occurred at Jasper's restaurant in Largo, Prince George's County on Wednesday, right in the middle of the dinner rush.
The owner, Fred Rosenthal, told DC News Now that he first heard about an unresponsive woman in the bathroom around 6 p.m. He says he immediately contacted police, and they showed up to try to help her but she ultimately died.
The restaurant was full at the time and it didn't close after the woman's death, according to a police report obtained by Fox 5 DC.
"We closed off the area and created a unisex bathroom for the men’s room anticipating that the coroner’s office would be there shortly rather than creating any type of panic or telling people there was a problem in the restaurant," Rosenthal told DC News Now.
One diner put the restaurant on blast with a tweet the next morning, and the tweet has absolutely blown up.
"Let's talk about how the establishment didn't close the restaurant and let her body stay in the bathroom until closing," she wrote. "NEVER GOING THERE AGAIN."
Yikes.
In a follow-up tweet, the user wrote: "That's just some money-hungry a** sh*t… on top of that all the servers were under distress, so the service was just trash (it's kinda already expected tho), but like I just would never go to that ghetto a** place again."
Many commenters on the tweet were outraged that they would keep the restaurant open with a dead body in the bathroom. Others suggested that legally, the restaurant did nothing wrong.
The Prince George's County Police Department did not share her cause of death, but they said no foul play was involved.
The restaurant manager, Miguel Perea, told Fox 5 that they were trying to protect the privacy of the woman's family.
"It's not something that we are accustomed to," Perea explained. "At the moment, we thought we were doing the right thing, and we realized maybe we were wrong."
The restaurant later acknowledged the incident in a statement on its website.
"Last night, one of our customers tragically passed away within our establishment," it said. "On behalf of our ownership, management, and staff, we send the sincerest and most heartfelt support and condolences to the deceased’s family. We will be reaching out to the family to see if there is any way we can support them in this time of grief."
Rosenthal said that it took "almost two hours" for a coroner to show up and remove the body because of a staffing issue that night.
"Hindsight being 2020, if we knew that it was gonna take over two hours, we may have handled it somewhat differently," he told DC News Now. "But I thought at the time, we handle in a way that is respectful to our family and everybody involved," he added.
The woman has not been identified.