HANOVER COUNTY, Va. -- A "disgusting" discovery made by a Mechanicsville child has prompted her mother to issue a warning to other parents.
"Check everything, check all the toys, because you never know what’s in there these days,” Chelsea Oslin said.
The warning came after Oslin's five-year-old daughter Cat found a smoked cigarette inside a toy punch ball purchased at a Hanover grocery store.
"She kept telling me there’s something in here mommy,” Oslin said about her daughter's discovery. "Sure enough there was this already smoked cigarette in the bottom of the balloon.”
Oslin said the cigarette butt had Chinese letters on it.
“If she went to blow it up she could have choked on it,” Oslin said.
She said she immediately contacted the company that distributed the toy, Ball, Bounce and Sport Inc. in Ashland, Ohio.
Jim Coleman, who is in charge of International Quality and Compliance at the company, said the company determined the punch ball the Oslins bought was made in China in 2012.
After hearing from Oslin, Coleman contacted the manufacturer.
Coleman described the situation as “very odd” adding that “he’s never seen anything like it before, but it’s unacceptable.”
Coleman said the company is doing its “due diligence” to get to the bottom of what happened.
