A DoorDash driver is seen allegedly spraying a substance after making a food delivery in Indiana in a video shared with law enforcement by the recipient of the order.

A DoorDash driver has been arrested after an Indiana couple reported getting sick after eating their food delivery and found footage of their delivery driver spraying an aerosol at their doorstep.

Kourtney Stevenson, 29, of McCracken County, Kentucky, was arrested on Friday, Dec. 12, by the McCracken County Sheriff's Office on an Indiana arrest warrant. She was charged with two counts of battery resulting in moderate injury and two counts of consumer product tampering for the Dec. 7 incident, which was captured in a now-viral doorbell camera video.

A news release from Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office says Stevenson told authorities she used pepper spray on a spider, not the food. The release says she faces felony charges over "allegedly spraying substance" on the food.

Food delivery service DoorDash dropped Stevenson, who is being held in Kentucky without bond pending extradition proceedings, according to Vanderburgh County (Indiana) Sheriff Noah Robinson. In Indiana, she will be held on $3,500 cash bond, he said.

USA TODAY has reached out to public defenders offices in both states.

“Residents should be able to trust that the food they order for their families is safe," Robinson said in a news release. "When someone violates that trust and endangers others, we will respond with urgency and we will pursue charges."

Alleged food spraying seen on video

One of the alleged victims, Mark Cardin, contacted the sheriff's department after getting sick from the Arby's order delivered to their northern Vanderburgh County home shortly after midnight on Dec. 7, police said. He and his wife got burning sensations in their mouth, nose, throat and stomachs and began vomiting after eating the food, they told the sheriff's office.

“I had a look at the bag and seen that there was some kind of spray or something,” Cardin told 14 News, an NBC affiliate in Evansville, Indiana. “The bag had been tampered with. So I pulled up my doorbell camera and seen that the lady who dropped the food off had actually tampered with it on purpose for some reason.”

The couple then reviewed their doorbell camera footage and "observed the DoorDash Dasher place the food off camera on the porch and take a picture," the department said. "She then sprayed a substance in the direction of the food from a small aerosol can attached to her keychain and left."

"I definitely inhaled some fumes off of it," Cardin told NBC News. He provided the video clip to the news outlet. People Magazine and Inside Edition were among many news outlets reporting on the incident.

Cardin told NBC News his wife's health improved within 10 minutes. When he tried to contact the driver, he found the person had blocked him, he said. After that, Cardin contacted DoorDash and the sheriff's department, he told NBC News.

After detectives subpoenaed DoorDash records to identify the delivery person and found her residence in Kentucky near Paducah, they contacted her for an interview, the sheriff's department said. Stevenson told detectives she used pepper spray, but not on the food but to spray a spider she saw while making the delivery. "She explained that she is terrified of spiders," the sheriff's department said.

But detectives found the explanation dubious. The overnight temperature in Evansville, Ind., dropped to 35 degrees the night of the incident – conditions under which outdoor spiders in Indiana become inactive and cannot crawl on exposed surfaces, the sheriff's department said.

When Stevenson called back to cancel a scheduled interview, the sheriff’s office proceeded with an arrest warrant.

DoorDash said it had permanently barred Stevenson from its platform. "DoorDash has absolutely zero tolerance for this type of appalling behavior," the company said in a statement.

Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DoorDash bans driver accused of 'spraying substance' on food delivery

Reporting by Mike Snider and Houston Harwood, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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