Flying hot dog hits Philadelphia baseball fan square in the face

For a couple of nights after she was hit in the face by a hot dog, Kathy McVay would close her eyes and see a silver object hurtling towards her in space.

McVay was seated just behind home plate watching a Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia when the rogue dog, fired from a hot dog cannon by Phillies mascot Phillie Phanatic, hit her "like a ton of bricks."

The hot dog left her with injuries serious enough to merit a trip to the hospital — but McVay told As It Happens host Carol Off she doesn't mind people getting a chuckle out of her unusual injury. 

Here is part of their conversation. 

You were out enjoying a baseball game, then what happened?

We saw the Phanatic come around the bases, and he went towards first base. He shot the hot dog cannon up, and it just shot right up into the air and landed right in my face. Unfortunately, I have a complete tear on my rotator cuff, so I couldn't move my right arm to push it out of the way.

It was just so fast that it hit my face, my nose, and knocked my glasses off. And then the hot dog flew into the next section.

Did it really hurt?

Oh yes. It felt like a ton of bricks had hit my face. It's wrapped in duct tape, which I didn't know.

Has anyone ever been injured by one of these Phanatic hot dogs before?

No. I was the first one.

What did you do after the hot dog hit you?

They contacted their first aid and they took me down to their first aid station and then they applied ice. The doctor looked at me and said, "You know, you really need to go to the hospital to make sure nothing's broken."

After my friends calmed down from laughing ... we decided to drive me up to the hospital up here, and they took at the CAT scan and they said nothing was broken, but that it would get worse before it gets better.

How did you explain this to the doctor when you got there?

Well, that was the funny part.

The gentleman at the front desk said, "I don't know how to put this in the computer," so he just put it in as "woman hit by flying hot dog."

Are you getting a lot of attention for this?

Yeah, unfortunately. I've been called the hot dog lady and I even had a request last night when I went out to dinner for a picture.

Has the team reached out to you about all of this?

The only one that reach out to me was the representative for the Phanatic. He felt really bad, he apologized and he said that this has never happened before. He also said to give him a call when I'm ready to go to a game and that he would make sure that I'm taken care of.

We should remind people that Phillie Phanatic is this large, furry, bird-like creature. So are you having nightmares about this large bird?

For the first couple of nights it was like I kept seeing this silver thing coming at me, and I keep replaying it in my mind, like, what I could have done differently? And there really wasn't anything.

To be honest with you, in the next section there were small children, so now I know that, it's better me than them.

And like I said if it can give somebody a laugh in this day and age with everything that's going on, I'm happy to do it.

Written by Earvin Solitario. Interview produced by Chris Harbord. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.