Inside Edition spoke to two men who said they were partially blinded when beer bottles spontaneously burst as they were handling them.
In extremely rare circumstances, some beer bottles have spontaneously broken on their own.
Jay Curtis told Inside Edition his leg was severely lacerated by a Corona bottle that suddenly shattered in a case of beer he was carrying into his house.
“It was blood everywhere and it ran down my leg, which scared me,” Curtis said.
Gonzalo Luis-Morales and Latchman Ramnanan said they were partially blinded on separate occasions when Corona bottles suddenly burst in their faces. During the interview, they said Inside Edition’s bright lights were so painful on their eyes, they had to wear sunglasses.
“It really sounded loud. It was an explosion,” Ramnanan said. "... I never knew something like this would happen."
“It was definitely like a grenade,” Luis-Morales added.
Ramnanan said he was placing a Corona bottle into a cooler at a cookout when it suddenly exploded. Luis-Morales was working as a bartender, loading Corona bottles into a bucket when he said one ruptured.
Attorney John Danzi is suing Corona on behalf of Luis-Morales. “Everybody knows that bottles of beer break. But they're not supposed to explode,” Danzi said. “We want them to make safer beers.”
Inside Edition found the reported explosions are not unique to Corona.
One video shows a bottle of alcoholic cider suddenly bursting open on an employee at a liquor store. In another video, a bottle of beer explodes by itself sitting on the shelf.
So why are some bottles suddenly bursting on their own?
Chicago glass safety expert Mark Meshulam said in the rare instance where bottles spontaneously burst, it's likely because of a weakness in the glass combined with too much pressure.
“It takes something like a perfect storm for a spontaneous break to occur,” he said. “Chances are it’s a combination of factors.”
To demonstrate what it can look like when a bottle explodes after too much pressure builds up, he deliberately over-pressurized bottles.
Meshulam said manufacturers need to do further testing on their bottles to get to the bottom of why this can sometimes happen.
“It's not exactly an epidemic. It's something to be concerned about, it's something to research and find out what went wrong,” he said.
A spokesperson for Constellation Brands, the makers of Corona, said they do not comment specifically on pending litigation. He said they “take any claims related to the safety, health and well-being of our consumers very seriously. Corona is the #1 imported beer by volume in the U.S. for more than 20 years, with consumers purchasing well in excess of 100 million cases per year.” He also stated that they “conduct quality inspections on every bottle as part of our production process and [their] bottles are designed and tested to maintain their integrity,” adding they, “are conducting a thorough investigation of the claims to better understand potential causes behind the alleged incidents and remain committed to ensuring that our products continue to meet our high-quality standards and the expectations of our consumers.”
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