She was a routine sous chef and liked working her 6 a.m. Monday-through-Friday shifts, leaving her weekends to enjoy the outdoors.
She had been on the job for three weeks. She prepped first thing in the morning, beginning with celery using her personal 10-inch, straight-edged chef knife. As she began to chop, the knife plunged into her middle right finger.
It looked like a deep paper cut. It bled a little bit. I told everyone in the kitchen that I cut my finger, she said, explaining that announcing a cut is proper practice in a kitchen.
She found a bandage to fit her cut, rewashed the wound, dried it, applied the bandage and put on a pair of gloves so she could continue working.
Four hours passed without a thought about the cut though unbeknownst to Gludau, she was experiencing the wounds peripheral effects. As she lifted 60-pound pots of potatoes off a stove, she felt the muscle in her right shoulder pull.
The pain shot down her arm, she said. I told my supervisor that I had pulled a muscle, but that I wanted to continue working and that it wasnt that serious, she recalled.
The day after the work incident, Gludau told Peerens that she wanted to go to the hospital. She called her supervisor and told her she had deep shoulder pain and flu symptoms...
