Liquid nitrogen creates a dramatic cloud of smoke in the glass.

“The manager said nothing about waiting for it to die down”, said Scanlon in court last Thursday.

BBC reports that the ordeal left her close to death.

Scanlon spent three weeks in the hospital, where a large hole was found in her stomach. But consuming the drinks before the liquid nitrogen evaporates can be risky.

A girl had to have her stomach removed after being served a cocktail containing liquid nitrogen on her eighteenth birthday. The court also heard no risk assessment was carried out to determine the safety of the cocktail.

One of the witnesses, a friend of Scanlon who was present at the party, told the judge that she remembered the waiter telling Scanlon to “drink it while it is still smoking”.

Scanlon said, “I turned to the man and asked if it was OK to drink”. “There was a failure to heed warnings and advice from a senior health and safety officer”, Pamela Badley said, according to The Guardian.

Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of -196°C and causes immediate frostbite when it comes into contact with bare skin.

“[Liquid nitrogen’s] extreme cold temperature makes it unsafe for people to drink and eat because the human body is unable to cope with such a cold internal temperature”, notes the UK’s Food Standards Agency, similar to the FDA in the United States. This rapid and vast expansion can cause closed containers encompassing the substance to rupture, like a stomach in this case.

Liquid nitrogen is sometimes used to give a drink a steaming effect, but it’s definitely not safe to ingest.

Scanlon’s lawyer Patrician Noone told Channel 5, “Gaby still has regular, severe abdominal pain….”

“What happened has had a devastating impact on my health, and nothing is going to change that, but I am relieved that the court case has finally come to an end”, Scanlon said. “It’s the same then with liquid nitrogen and liquid nitrogen gas – a very small amount of liquid nitrogen will turn into an enormous amount of gas”.