A McDonald’s worker was left in “excruciating” pain with second-degree burns across his face and body when a coworker allegedly threw scalding hot oil at him in a baffling, random attack.
Jacob Smith, 20, has been hospitalized in the ICU for more than a week with severe burns across his face, neck, arm and back in the May 30 attack blamed on fellow McDonald’s shift-worker Jalani Bluett, 23, who was busted days later after fleeing and initially being named a missing person.
“What should have been a normal day at work turned into a nightmare,” Smith’s mother, Amber Smith, wrote in an online fundraiser.
“He was in the office getting ready to count the money when he saw out of the corner of his eye something, and he just turned, and the oil was just thrown on him,” the mom also told KCRA.
Cops have not given a motive for the attack — and Smith also said he has no idea what led to it, his mom said.
“As his mother, it broke my heart when he looked at me and said, ‘Why would he do this to me?,’” Amber Smith said in her fundraiser.
Jacob, who is engaged to be married, is still in the ICU receiving special treatment more than a week after the incident. As of Sunday afternoon, the fundraiser was a few hundred dollars short of its goal of $22,000 to help with medical costs and living expenses while Smith cannot work.
“The pain he’s experiencing is so excruciating that they can’t give him a level of pain medicine outside of the ICU,” Amber said.
Doctors are working to reduce the size of the burns to minimize the need for skin grafts, she said.
Bluett fled the McDonald’s after the assault, and was named a missing person by the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office, which said he was “considered at risk due to a diagnosis and vulnerabilities.”
He was later found, arrested and hit with multiple felony charges, including battery causing serious bodily injury. He is being held at the Sutter County jail without bail.
Police are still investigating what led up to the attack.
“I want justice to be served. I want him to serve the time he needs to serve for what he’s done to my son,” Amber said.
“I mean, I don’t wish bad things towards him. I just want him to understand that what he did — really understand what he did — and the pain that he caused to my son is excruciating.”
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