Sick Subway Worker Fired After Leaving Shift in Ambulance

A sick Subway worker was fired after leaving her shift when an ambulance was called because she nearly passed out on the lawn in front of the Houston-suburb Subway due to a stomach virus, reports Jezebel.

Another worker from the Pizza Hut next to the Subway found the sick Subway worker, Elizabeth Taff, vomiting and called for medical assistance. Taff had attempted to tell her manager that she was throwing up and had vomit on her clothing. The manager allegedly told Taff to “just switch shirts” to get rid of the vomit stains on her clothing. Taff pleaded that she did not want to infect customers with the virus and was told, “I don’t care. Just get back on the line.”

Although Taff’s claims have not yet been substantiated, the local Subway restaurant did confirm that Taff had been fired, telling Houston’s Channel 2 news that it was due to “poor performance and insubordination.”

Photos that were taken of Taff outside of the Subway store visibly weak and unable to stand up were posted to the local news sharing group “Meanwhile in Brazoria County.” The story was shared with Subway’s official Facebook, where they apologized for incident saying that “it never should have happened” and provided a customer complaint phone number to deal with the issue.

Taff has also posted to the Facebook group, saying that she plans to use the opportunity to address the chain’s sick policy:

I called subway world corporate today at 11.26 am. Spent 30 minutes on the phone with them. They are going to send it to the local corporate office. The result I wanted out of this is not fame rather I wanted a change to be made. I probably made alot of people sick. And for that I’m sorry. I did not feel sick till almost an hour into my shift when i started to vomit. The pain was torture. I brought it to managements attention. They could care less. I was humiliated degraded and unjustly fired. I’m wanting people to be trained better so this does not happen again.

Sick subway workers may be the least of the company’s transgressions. A report from CNN Money earlier this year showed that Subway has the worst track record for labor violations of any fast-food chain in the United States. Between 2000 and 2013 it had to reimburse more than $3.8 million in worker compensation for illegal business practices. Among the violations were unlawfully requiring workers to sign contracts that exempted the business from paying them overtime. In total, more than 17,000 violations were found at U.S. Subway restaurants.

[Image via Facebook]