Fingertip found in convenience store rice ball

TOKYO -- A woman in Japan bit into a rice ball she bought at a convenience store and got a gruesome surprise: a fingertip.

The woman spit out a mouthful of her Korean bibimbap-flavored snack after she tasted something unusual and discovered a half-inch slice of human finger, said Takashi Fujii, a spokesman for the convenience store Lawsons.

Police later determined the severed digit belonged to an employee of food company Nihon Fresh Delica who accidentally cut his finger while making rice balls.

The woman found the chunk of flesh Friday in the northern city of Sendai. She showed it to a doctor, who identified it as a fingertip.

Bibimbap is a spicy Korean mix of rice, vegetables and red pepper paste.

Fujii apologized.

"We'll make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again," he said.