Employee Attacked in Drive-Thru by Monkey

Mobile, AL (WorkersCompensation.com) – A Starbucks worker is recovering this week after being attacked by a monkey in the drive-thru.

Officials said the pet monkey was riding in a car with its owner when the owner stopped at the Mobile, Ala. Starbucks on Jan. 10. Somehow the monkey got free and escaped the car through the open window.

“The monkey then leapt from the vehicle thorugh the window of the business, and attacked an employee,” police said.

Coworkers rushed to the employee’s side and pulled the monkey off of them.

“The monkey then re-entered the customer’s vehicle before the customer drove away,” police said. “The owner of the animal could face charges. This remains an active Animal Services investigation.”

Health officials in Mobile County said the animal has been identified as an Aotus monkey, otherwise known as a Noisy Night Monkey. The monkeys are considered nocturnal monkeys and are native to Central and South America. It wasn’t clear from the media reports whether the attack happened in the morning or in the night, and how the monkey’s mood and behavior would have been affected.

According to HR Dive, protecting employees from monkey attacks isn’t something even Starbucks tends to take into consideration.

“While Starbucks no doubt takes worker safety seriously and has rigorous training and guidelines in place, monkey attacks may be an eventuality it quite reasonably hadn’t considered,” the publication said. “HR departments typically focus on mitigating common workplace hazards, but the incident shows that certain risks fall outside conventional safety planning and thinking.

The employee wasn’t not reportedly hurt in the incident, but HR Dive said had the employee been bitten, it would have been a much more complex situation.

“HR teams would then need to coordinate medical treatment, assess the workplace's risk exposure, and evaluate whether additional safety measures, and although on the spot monkey passenger checks may be difficult to enforce, they would help prevent similar occurrences in the future,” the magazine said.

It’s not the first primate attack on an employee in the past year.

In late October of last year, a worker at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden was attacked by a chimp during feeding time. Authorities with the zoo said the worker lost part of his thumb when the bonobo bit him.

According to the zoo, the worker was making routine rounds in the Jungle Trails habitat on Friday, giving the animals food and medicine. The bonobo allegedly bit the worker through the mesh barrier, resulting in a “partial amputation,” officials said.

“The Cincinnati Zoo prioritizes the safety of its employees and animals,” the zoo said in a statement. “Bonobos are highly intelligent and social primates, and interactions with them involve established protocols and safety procedures. At no time were the bonobos outside their habitat and per zoo policy, animal care staff and great apes do not occupy shared spaces.”

Zoo officials said they would be reviewing the details of the incident to determine what precipitated the attack.

The most recent attack on an employee by a monkey before that was in 2018.

That year, a pet spider monkey allegedly attacked two Home Depot employees in Okeechobee, Florida.

Police said in May the monkey, named “Spanky,” jumped out of a shopping cart and grabbed one Home Depot cashiers shirt, leaving red marks on her shoulder. And a month later, another Home Depot employee at a different store, claimed she was attacked by the monkey after she noticed him roaming the store’s parking lot with a leash on.

Officials said Spanky had escaped the truck it had been left in while the owner was shopping inside the store. The employee grabbed the monkey by the leash and tried to take it inside to find the owner, but the monkey was spooked by the sliding glass doors and jumped on the employee and bit her arm. When the monkey jumped off of the employee, she followed, and tried to contain it. The employee suffered several scratches and bites to her face and body as a result.

The monkey’s owner, Tina Ballard, was arrested and charged with allowing a wild animal to escape, among other charges.

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