A company employee in the town of Yasato, Ibaraki Prefecture, was paralyzed Saturday after drinking the remains of a canned soft drink he left in a refrigerator in his company's dormitory, police said Sunday.
Police said they found that an agricultural chemical had been mixed into the drink and are investigating the incident as a case of attempted murder.
Masaharu Chujoya, a 59-year-old employee of Jonan Green Systems, a gardening company, was rushed to a nearby hospital but remains in coma, police said.
According to police, Chujoya left the dormitory for work around 7 a.m. Saturday with three of his colleagues and tended to some ostriches in a farm the company operates.
After returning to the dormitory at around 3 p.m., he drank from a 350-ml can he took from the refrigerator and promptly collapsed, they said.
Police said they are questioning people linked to the company and trying to identify the contents of the can. Chujoya and three other workers who live in the one-story dormitory share the refrigerator from which the can was taken, police said.
Chujoya was initially transported to a hospital in Ishioka by a colleague from the dormitory but was later transferred to a bigger hospital in Tsuchiura when the seriousness of his condition was diagnosed.
A Tsuchiura hospital doctor informed police about the man at around 6 p.m. the same day.
The company operates a farm called Dacho Okoku (Ostrich Kingdom) in Ishioka, where it raises the birds to sell their eggs, meat and leather products made from their skin.