Houston family says dead rodent found in Dr. Pepper bottle

HOUSTON – A Houston grandfather said a dead rodent was found inside his young grandson's bottle of Dr. Pepper soda.

Floating in the half-empty 20-ounce bottle of Dr. Pepper is some sort of rodent. It's got beady eyes, small ears and a tail. 

John Graves, of Katy, said his 3-year-old grandson, Kayden, drank the Dr. Pepper on Sunday after they bought it in Galveston. They gave it to him while he sat in his car seat. He didn't finish it, so they put the cap back on. 

"This morning when they opened it they found something floating in there," Graves said. "Pretty good size. About 3 inches long with a big tail."

"You think it's rabies. You think of dirty, filthy rodents. What did he ingest?" he said.

Worried, they called their pediatrician and took Kayden in. 

"They did blood and urine samples, contacted the state of Texas and the CDC," Graves said.

The family also contacted Dr. Pepper. A spokesperson told them and KPRC 2 that they want the bottle so they can run tests on it. 

But the Graves family wants to have their own testing done before handing the bottle over to Dr. Pepper's people. 

"I want to get the rat tested to see where it came from, how it got there, if there is any medical concerns we should be concerned about," Graves said.

The family told KPRC 2 they may contact a lawyer and will work with Dr. Pepper to figure out what the next steps are. They insist there is no way that the rodent got into the bottle after they purchased it. 

Dr. Pepper-Snapple released a statement to KPRC 2 News that read:

"Nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of our consumers. We take all consumer complaints very seriously, are very concerned about the call we received today from Mr. Graves and are investigating it as best as we can.

"What we know from our experience is that given the controls and safeguards we have in our production facilities it is virtually impossible for any foreign object to enter any container during the bottling process. All of our containers enter our facility on pallets in our warehouse and remain covered until the moment they are placed on our high-speed filling lines. Once on the filling lines, they are inverted and rinsed out before they are filled and capped.

"We have offered to dispatch a courier to pick up the product to take it out for testing by a third party forensics laboratory, but the consumer has declined this request. This lab would be able to analyze any rodent that got into the product, determine how it entered the container and even inspect the contents of its stomach. This process can take 6-8 weeks to yield conclusive findings. Until we have the opportunity to review the contents, we don't have a way to do a full investigation."

This story comes from KSAT's sister station KPRC in Houston.