A home cooked meal took a turn for the worse after a woman ended up in the emergency room when she picked up a common ingredient.

During the preparation of arroz caldo, a hearty chicken and rice soup, disaster suddenly struck when the home cook picked up an onion.

A tiny piece of the vegetable peeled off and lodged into the victim’s thumb, which quickly caused complications, resulting in a lengthy hospital visit.

She wrote on a Reddit thread: “Grabbed an onion from the bin, and a bit from the dry root end of it splintered off into my thumb.

“Couldn’t get it out easily, so I figured no biggie, it would just come out on its own over time.”

However, what seemed to be an innocent accident, dramatically escalated the following morning.

The woman explained how she had a “red streaking going up [her] arm, along with swelling and pain”.

She then swiftly sought medical advice using the Vital Urgent Care Service where medical professionals recognised the severity of the injury.

The woman said: “I was told this was a ‘bad, advancing infection’ and that ‘whatever was on that onion was BAD’.

The doctors then urged her to seek care, in-person, urgently. The onion-victim was also prescribed oral antibiotics for phlebitis and cellulitis.

Upon arrival at the urgent care clinic, doctors examined the patient’s arms where they then decided the case was too serious for them to handle.

She said: “I needed to go to the ER for blood cultures, I.V. antibiotics, and to have them remove the splinter.

“Oh, that onion? It turned out to be rotten on the inside. But the arroz caldo was delicious.”

Social media users responded to the lady’s story with shock as it warned keen home cooks to be wary when handling ingredients.

One Reddit user said “imagine dying from grabbing an onion,” as another wrote: “Oh my god, I handle a lot of onions and this is very traumatising.”

A third said: “I’m here checking all my onions.”