to think that Pret are responsible for this young woman's death

[brizzledrizzle]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45617845

A 15 year old with a sesame allergy died after eating a sandwich from Pret a manger; the company confirmed that 'its products were not individually labelled with allergen or ingredient information.' (missing apostrophe not mine)

I think it's appalling that they don't label products and pretty stupid to bake baguettes with sesame seeds inside if you aren't going to make it very obvious on the packaging that they contain sesame seeds. The government website says that they must be on the packaging because of allergies.

@ScottyTotty2

That's like that poor woman who used to be a producer for this morning. Spoke to the chef who told her the tomato soup would be safe and nut free But he had stirred a spoonful of pesto through it. She had such a huge reaction and 2 epi pens saved her life but not her health. She's now wheelchair bound and can hardly speak. It was awful to see her like that because the chef didn't think a spoonful would matter.

Polar Bear I take your point but when you've lost a loved one, you want to feel everything possible had been done for them. Thinking that something different could have been done does add to the distress. It must be much much worse when it's your young daughter.
The responses of the steward at the enquiry feel a bit cold. I wonder if he has been advised by the BA legal team not to express any regret.

Walkingthroughawall posted this yesterday Responding to a couple of comments about the lack of defib...this almost certainly won't have made any difference to the outcome. Anaphylaxis is one of the causes of cardiac arrest that is most likely to result in a non-shockable rhythm and for which the management is adrenaline and chest compressions not electricity.

I completely agree that this is a tragic situation. We don’t fully know the background. As you say, the crew were probably briefed and gave factual answers. I have been in court as a witness before but that’s another story...

I used to be a nurse and families could get very upset and angry at the nursing staff if a loved one died even if the staff followed all the correct procedures which we did. Even with the upmost empathy and compassion, we did occasionally get abuse from grieving families who were understandably distraught.

It’s made me realise how bloody serious these allergies are , feel like a dick but never grasped how fatal they are

Wonder why so allergy prone in the UK ? As other countries I have visited seem to be less of an issue

Polar bear when my dm died, it was a complete shock as the doctors had been very positive about her. She was told she was cancer free two months before she died. When she did die, it was made extra distressing having questions in my head about her treatment. My db was particularly angry. However we decided not to raise any questions because we didn't want to upset our df. I sometimes feel guilty about not doing that, as if Im letting my dm down. I understand it may cause stress to medical staff by having things questioned but sometimes families need to do it.

My dh actually had a severe allergic reaction to penicillin when having an operation on his eye when he was 3 years old. My mil reckons he only survived because a paediatric cardiologist happened to be on that floor and saw the panic going on and came in. It could have gone completely differently. It was just a fluke the cardiologist was passing by.

This thread has been educational for me re allergies. I know from personal experience of DH's relative's horrible reaction to a wasp sting how serious allergies can be but thought epipens solved the problem on their own, rather than being an interim solution.

As others have said, we don't know all the facts but it does make me wonder why they thought it was ok to board the plane.

I had an asthma attack due to nut allergy and was about 1 min from it being fatal. Thanks to local hospital for saving me. x Scary as hell, so yes allergies should be taken v serioulsy

I think it should be taken seriously, and it should also be something that we try to accommodate for as a society.

The number of responses on this thread along the lines of ‘well she shouldn’t have eaten outside the home’ have horrified me.

Definitley said it upthread, but if someone with a disability that means they need a wheelchair complains they can’t access services, the response should be’what do you need us to do’ not ‘well what are you doing leaving the house anyway, you’re in a wheelchair’

People with allergies want things to be labelled appropriately, not have to ask for often inaccurate information from the teenager behind the counter who doesn’t give a fuck.

It’s not a lot to ask really

To be honest, if her allergy was that severe she should have brought or prepared her own food.
It can't always be someone else's fault.
Some parents who lost their children then go on these crusades to look for someone to blame. I suppose it gives them a purpose.

DorasBob well said

Miggeldy - where’s she supposed to get food from that is 100% safe is there’s no onus on accurate labelling?

She can hardly grow her own wheat and kill her own livestock.

If supermarkets have to label things appropriatley, then so should Pret A Manger.

They could have brought a sandwich from home, it's only a 2 hour flight to Nice. If my daughter had such a severe allergy that's definitely what I would do.

Miggeldy - where’s she supposed to get food from that is 100% safe is there’s no onus on accurate labelling?

But at the same time, how can food makers guarantee 100% that a sandwich is free of a particular allergen when it is made in a kitchen alongside other items which may have contaminated it? When in some cases, a tiny fragment of a seed could kill someone.

The fact is, they won't be guaranteeing anything, certainly not after this inquest.

But at the same time, how can food makers guarantee 100% that a sandwich is free of a particular allergen when it is made in a kitchen alongside other items which may have contaminated it? When in some cases, a tiny fragment of a seed could kill someone.

They can't. But what they can do is list all the actual ingredients, which seems like a pretty basic requirement. This wasn't a case of inadvertent cross-contamination; the roll was full of sesame. Most allergic reactions are dose-related - i.e. a big dose of an allergen is generally much more serious than a tiny fragment.

It's the cabin crew who are responsible IMO. They refused to get the planes defibrillator to help her.
I do think the law ought to change though. Pret didn't do anything illegal.

Pret may well have stuck to the letter of the law, BUT they were aware of previous incidents of the sesame in those rolls causing allergic reactions, so morally they are responsible, in my opinion.

The cabin crew were in a difficult position - there are safety procedures they have to observe, on landing, and they had no way of knowing whether their employers would turn a blind eye to them ignoring these, in this situation.

The point the coroner made was that the crew should have got the defrib out with the rest of the medical equipment so that it was ready if needed. Essentially they shouldn’t wait until someone goes into arrest before they fetch it. If they had done that the landing wouldn’t have been an issue. It also was actually in a different part of the plane to the other supplies.

That said, it seems to be generally agreed that it wouldn’t make a material difference to the outcome.

But that might be crucial in another case.

I think too, that if I had an allergy that severe, I wouldn't eat anything if I wasn't 100% sure of the ingredients.
Though that's not to diminish the responsibilities of crew and Pret.

I have a 22 yo son with a severe allergy to all nuts. We’ve known about this since he was three. It has impacted his (and therefore our family’s) life at every stage; taking his own food to birthday parties as a child, school trips away (I’m thankful for teachers who have taken the responsibility to administer an Epi pen should one be needed); family meals out...we can NEVER do this spontaneously even now; he will never be able to go to a Chinese or Indian restaurant or have take away from there; living away from home with shared kitchens in halls at Uni (I’m so thankful for the kind youngsters he lived with who gave up their need for Nutella and Peanut Butter for him to be safe); Wedding receptions; funeral wakes.....everything where food is consumed cannot be done without thought and careful planning. My heart goes out to those parents. It could have been my family; we read and reread ingredients lists before we buy ANYTHING. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve shed a tear whilst reading the daily reports from the coroners hearing. I feel so desperately for them and no one can truly understand if they have not lived this.

Returnfromdublin, I can understand how difficult life must be for you and your son having to continuously put so much thought into things most of us take for granted. Sadly, people with severe allergies do have to lead a different life in this sense to non allergic people. It is very unfair. But that's the cards that were dealt. If only the father in this case had planned better and brought a snack/sandwich with him from home, which they knew was 100% safe, this would not have happened. A person with allergies cannot expect to eat out and buy pre prepared food in the same way as other people. It's very unfair and inconvenient but there's no alternative, especially when one mistake can end in the loss of a life.

But dims I’m, the food that you eat at home is bought from the supermarket. This food is labelled so you know what’s in it, I.e does it contain nuts, does t contain traces of nuts. There’s still a risk that a loaf of bread from sainsburys could have traces of allergens in. The key thing is that it all needs to be labelled, so you can decide what to buy.

Why should a sandwich from a big chain be inherently more dangerous? The deaths caused by this Pret A Mangersandwich have been due to ambiguous or misleading labelling. If they had a label on saying ‘contains sesame seeds’ this could all have been avoided. That’s what people are calling for. How is it fair to see ‘well people with allergies can never buy any food from shops’ instead of ‘let’s make it the law that all food has to be labelled appropriatley’?

How would you feel if you developed allergies tomorrow? Would you be happy to be excluded from eating in a resteraunts, buying food from a cafe or eating a takeaway for the rest of your life, because it’s incknvjent for shops to label what they are selling?