Daddy, help me … I can’t breathe
Girl’s final words on jet before Pret allergy death
THE father of a girl who died from a severe allergic reaction after eating a Pret a Manger baguette yesterday told how she fought for life on a plane, begging him ‘Daddy, help me … I can’t breathe’.
Nadim Ednan-Laperouse, 53, blamed the death of his 15-year-old daughter Natasha on the sandwich chain after she collapsed on the British Airways flight and later died in hospital.
The millionaire businessman told an inquest her death came after she ate a £3.45 artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette which had sesame seeds ‘hidden’ in the dough. He said the schoolgirl had carefully checked the ingredients because she had suffered serious food allergies all her life but there was no mention of the seeds.
In a statement read out in court, the founder and chief executive of WOW Toys, who was awarded an MBE in 2000, said: ‘It is the worst imaginable thing to happen as a parent.’
He added: ‘I was stunned that a big food company like Pret could mislabel a sandwich and this could cause my daughher ter to die.’ The chief executive of Pret a Manger, Clive Schlee, was among those present at West London Coroner’s Court. At one point, the family’s lawyer, Jeremy Hyam QC, became emotional as he read out the father’s devastating account and paused to regain composure.
On July 17, 2016, Natasha and her father, alongside her best friend Bethany Holloway, set off from their £1million house in Fulham, West London, for a four-night holiday in Nice as a ‘special treat’. With an hour to go before their flight from Heathrow, they visited Pret a Manger and Natasha chose the artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette.
Mr Ednan-Laperouse told how she had ‘carefully’ checked the ingredients and had asked him to double-check them.
The inquest heard Natasha was severely allergic to dairy, banana, sesame seeds, and nuts, but put ‘her trust in food labelling’. Her father insisted: ‘There was no mention that sesame seeds were at all present in the baguette. I checked the fridge shelf and behind the counter and there was no allergy warnings to be seen.’ The court heard that within three minutes of eating the baguette she began complaining of an itchy throat.
Mr Ednan-Laperouse said she was ‘laughing and listening to music’ with her friend on the flight but around 35 minutes into the journey complained she was ‘feeling worse’. The inquest was told she lifted her top to reveal at least 20 hives on her midriff that looked like ‘jellyfish stings’. She was rushed to the cabin’s toilets where her father twice jabbed her in the thigh with an epipen – but to no effect.
Mr Ednan- Laperouse said her condition severely worsened, adding: ‘ Natasha said that she still couldn’t breathe and desperately looked at me. She said “Daddy, help me … I can’t breathe”.’
He kept talking to her, ‘telling her to fight and live’ as a junior doctor on board and a cabin crew member frantically gave her CPR. He said as she went into cardiac arrest ‘I was telling everything was OK. Natasha was fully unconscious.’
She was driven to a hospital in Nice where he was told by doctors that his daughter had 5 per cent chance of survival having suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen, major organ failure and collapsed lungs.
Mr Ednan-Laperouse held a phone to her ear so her mother and brother, who were still in London, could say goodbye.
He said: ‘The pain and agony of the call was beyond anything I have known.’ He took a lock of her hair, adding: ‘I told Natasha that we loved her for ever and would never forget her’.
Heathrow Pret manager Adoulaye-Djouma Diallo told the inquest there were clear allergy warnings on fridges and at the tills, but Mr Hyam said a check in June 2017 could not find any.
The inquest continues.
‘There were no warnings to be seen’