[xoxoxoBruce]

SACRAMENTO, CA - Finding a dead worm in your fried fish may be gross, but it's not a health code violation. One Sacramento couple learned this the hard way Monday afternoon at a local fast-food restaurant in Sacramento.

Jessie Pritchett said he and his wife Jonie had been eating their fish platters when his wife found something in her piece of fish.

"She broke the fish and went to put it in her mouth and she saw something that looked like a worm," Pritchett said. "When she pulled the batter back it was a worm, and I don't know how many worms she ate before that one," Pritchett added.

Kelly McCoy, a representative with the Sacramento County Health Department said as long as the worm was dead, there was no health code violation committed. McCoy said the discovery is more of a customer service issue.

On average, the Sacramento County Health Department receives about one complaint a month from restaurant patrons who find dead worms in fish, McCoy said.

Problems can arise if the fish is not properly cooked and the worms are still alive. If a person eats a live worm, he can become a host to the parasite. Finding a live worm in cooked fish would show that the fish was not properly cooked, and that would also be considered a violation, McCoy said.

Pritchett said the restaurant gave him a refund, but that didn't settle his stomache. He said when you eat at a restaurant, finding dead worms in food should not be acceptable.

"It shouldn't be normal. It should be a crime for someone to sell fish with worms in it," Pritchett said. "That's ridiculous gross."