Drink Mix-Up Leaves Another Child 'Drunk' at Popular Restaurant

It's happened again. Another toddler has gotten drunk at a popular restaurant chain after an employee accidentally gave the young boy sangria -- a mixture of fruit juice and white wine -- instead of orange juice. Previously it happened at an Applebee's in Michigan. This time it happened at an Olive Garden in Florida:

While the previous case involved the boy waving and talking to walls, this case was slightly more subdued. In Florida, the toddler was simply acting unruly, not mumbling to inanimate objects. Still, the boy was taken to the hospital.

Fox 35 reports:

Jill Van Heest took her two and half year old son Nikolai to dinner at the Olive Garden on Highway 98 in Lakeland on March 31st.

The boy ordered orange juice and his mom says he drank most of what was in his child's plastic cup when a waiter came to the table.

"We're eating our meals when the waiter came over and said there's been a mistake, I need to get you a new one and took the glass and kind of scurried away," Van Heest said.

She asked him what was in the cup and was told Tropical Sangria, a mixed drink of orange juice, pineapple juice and white wine.

Van Heest spoke to the restaurant manager. "He was very sympathetic, very apologetic, but no real explanation as to how it happened, just that it was a mistake," she said.

The mother says Niko was acting strangely and misbehaving throughout the dinner. "He was visibly drunk. His eyes were dilated, they were red. He was now getting loud."

She decided to take him to the Emergency Room and Lakeland Regional Medical Center to get checked out. Doctors there told her they couldn't immediately determine how much alcohol was in the boy's system. The gave him an I.V. of fluids and released him after a couple hours.

Olive Garden issued a statement apologizing for the incident. The employee responsible has been fired, and the mother has hired an attorney.