Allergy girl ‘almost died on f light af ter passenger refused to stop eating peanuts’
A GIRL of 14 almost died after suffering a severe allergic reaction at 30,000ft because a passenger on her flight insisted on eating peanuts, her mother has said.
Joanna Jones was on a British Airways service to London from Antigua when her daughter Poppy went into anaphylactic shock, which narrowed her airways and made her black out.
Her terrifying ordeal was triggered after a man refused to stop eating peanuts – despite an announcement when passengers boarded requesting no one do so because of Poppy’s allergy, her mother claims.
Mrs Jones, 39, said the passenger ‘carried on eating nuts despite at least two announcements not to’.
‘It was a nightmare for all of us and I really thought she might die,’ she told MailOnline. ‘It was really, really frightening and it was all down to a passenger who carried on eating nuts... When we boarded, the crew asked passengers not to eat peanuts as my daughter has an allergy but as we took off I saw a man around ten rows in front eating nuts.
‘I was worried and asked if we could be moved but there was no availability. The crew asked him to stop eating the nuts but he ignored the requests and carried on.’ Poppy was given two shots of life-saving adrenaline – administered from her EpiPen – while frantic cabin crew made an appeal for a doctor onboard’.
A nurse came forward who helped stabilise the schoolgirl using an oxygen mask. Mrs Jones, a carer, added: ‘It was so frightening. The pilot declared a medical emergency. At one point they were considering making an emergency landing but in the end he decided to carry on to Gatwick. The nurse helped us and kept an eye on Poppy’s blood pressure with a monitor, but even that wasn’t working properly. When we landed, an ambulance met us and rushed us straight to hospital where we spent the rest of the day until Poppy was well enough to be discharged.’
Mrs Jones, from Tooting, south London, said the danger of allergies on flights was not taken seriously enough.
‘It was a horrible experience and it could have all been avoided if this man had listened to the announcements and not eaten nuts,’ she said. ‘People seem to think this isn’t a serious issue but it is and the airlines should do more.
‘They should make it illegal for people to eat nuts onboard a plane if someone is allergic to them. All the crew could do was ask him to stop eating them but he wouldn’t. He carried on and just didn’t seem to care that he was putting my daughter’s life at risk.
‘We had asked to change cabin section but the crew couldn’t do that, and when she went into anaphylaxis it was awful. She has had attacks before but never on a plane and that’s what made it all the more frightening.’
In 2016, Natasha EdnanLaperouse, from Fulham, west London, died after eating a Pret a Manger sandwich while flying to Nice. The 15-year-old collapsed after eating a baguette she had bought at Heathrow, which contained sesame – to which she was allergic. It was not marked on the ingredients.
British Airways does not serve peanuts as snacks or include them in meals. The crew on Poppy’s flight ‘followed procedures’ when dealing with the medical incident, the airline said.
A spokesman added: ‘Our crew cared for a customer who appeared to suffer an allergic reaction on board, and they arranged for paramedics to meet the aircraft.’
‘Crew could only ask him to stop’