A Bolivian woman got the shock of her life when she bit into a juicy hamburger at one of her favourite fast food restaurants and chewed on the grim remains of a rotting human finger.

The incident took place at a Hot Burger store in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the Bolivian department of the same name on the evening of 12th September.

The customer, named Estefany Benitez, said she chewed on the severed finger while taking a bite of her recently-purchased hamburger.

She wrote on Facebook: “At the moment of eating, I chewed on a FINGER.”

She accompanied images of the rotting finger on Facebook along with videos of her waiting to speak to a company representative who offered: “Please tell me what you want and we will give it to you.”

In the footage, the Hot Burger representative also explains that the burgers arrive at the store pre-prepared and “nothing like this has ever happened to us before”.

Benitez says in one video viewed over 60,000 times: “Here we are at the magnificent Hot Burger where a finger ended up in my burger. I’ll post a photo of the finger right away.”

In the photo, the top of a rotting digit is seen on the side of the woman’s plate after she had apparently taken a bite of the burger.

She said a store representative offered to close the restaurant while she was still there, but then “carried on serving customers like nothing had happened”.

After the woman’s post was widely shared on social media, a company spokesperson called the matter an “unfortunate incident” and explained that a worker had lost part of his index finger while preparing the meat.

Edson Claure, director of the National Police’s Special Crime Fighting Force, confirmed to local media that a company employee lost part of his finger at work.

Meanwhile, the Vice Minister for the Defence of User and Consumer Rights decided to temporarily close the branch and impose a fine on the company.