Truesee's Daily Wonder

Too much Sandwich more than man could chew

Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

3:36 p.m. Friday, July 16, 2010

"When this is all over, it's going to be funny," Paul Addison predicted to his best friend, Chad Ettmueller, who one night last February lay pumped full of morphine in an Atlanta emergency room.

Chris Dunn, [email protected] Chad Ettmueller of Cumming takes a bite out of the double meat wicked sandwich at the Which Wich sandwich shop in Cumming on Monday, July 12, 2010. Ettmueller ordered that sandwich in March, dislocated both joints of his jaw while taking the first bite and paid about $4,000 out of pocket for the medical services needed to correct his jaw.

Ettmueller responded with mouth agape. He could not do otherwise. He had dislocated his jaw at maximum stretch when he tried to bite into a Which Wich sandwich shop's Double Wicked, a glorious pile of double portions of beef, bacon, turkey, ham, pepperoni, three cheeses and a wad of fixings on a whole wheat bun.

For 14 aching hours on that cold Saturday night, Ettmueller sat with his mouth stuck open, wide enough for a sparrow to check it out for a nesting site. 

As Jay Leno said while noting a news item about Ettmueller, "If the sandwich doesn't fit in your mouth, you've got too much sandwich." 

It has been an interesting five months. Ettmueller's discomfiting pose earned him Internet fame and the cross-county sympathy of Which Wich fans, who in a company-sponsored contest concluded June 23 voted the sandwich a new name. The Lockjaw.

That night in the Cumming Which Wich with his jaw jacked open, Ettmueller looked perplexedly at wife Carolyn and kids Conner, Kenna and Maddie and said as best he could that his mouth was stuck. 

Yup. OK, Dad. Whatever. Their responses had been conditioned by years of their father's joking. 

He walked outside. He manipulated the formerly cooperative body part with his hands. No luck. He was hitting himself in the chin in an unsuccessful effort to shut his mouth when Carolyn realized this was no laughing matter, though some emergency room workers would later disagree. 

She was a little freaked out, Carolyn admitted, but she was not crying. Not yet. The tears would come after they hurriedly wrapped the sandwiches and left for a visit to a nearby clinic. 

Ettmueller said, "They actually laughed at me," when he walked in gaping and Carolyn explained. 

The doctor failed to fix him. So the Ettmuellers headed to the first of two more emergency rooms they would visit that night. A half-day and $3,000 later for the insurance co-pays, deductibles and MRI's, Ettmueller awoke from the anesthesia with a closed mouth, sore muscles and a tight, chin-to-crown head wrap that stayed on for four days. 

It was, he said, "the most expensive sandwich that I never ate." 

Carolyn, a bit punchy from the night, dashed off an e-mail to Which Wich, telling the story and suggesting her beleaguered husband deserved a new sandwich since he did not get to eat his. 

Gary Birnberg, the Cumming Which Wich franchisee, saw it and thought: Is this for real? 

He discovered it was and, somewhat disturbingly, Ettmueller worked for a company that structures large lawsuit settlements. 

Phone calls between Binberg, the Ettmuellers and Jeff Sinelli, the CEO of the Dallas-based chain, eased the businessmen's concerns about Ettmueller practicing his craft upon them. 

Sinelli decided to try to spin Internet gold out of the bad situation. He flew to Atlanta and with Ettmueller's cooperation oversaw the making of YouTube videos about the incident.

LINK TO YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fjt6bNk6As

As the story spread, Ettmueller's name popped up in media from Forsyth County newspapers to the BBC in England. He fielded calls from radio stations around the country. 

He has since pondered buying a Which Wich franchise and has also gingerly eaten a few Lockjaws since the incident. But he hung on to the coupon Binberg gave him to replace the original. 

And whatever did happen to the original? 

Addison, who had been called in for moral support that painful night, left the emergency room hungry. He knew that somewhere in the parking deck, the never-bitten sandwich sat in the Ettmuellers' minivan, he said. When he found the minivan and its doors were open, it was like a green light.

"It was delicious," Addison said, noting that he acted in the best interest of his friend. 

"It was a mercy killing, only tastier," he said.

LINK TO PHOTO

http://www.ajc.com/news/too-much-sandwich-more-572146.html