Pret allergy death

Admiral Huddy · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:12

touch said:
As I understood it, the label contained a list of ingredients of what was inside the sandwich which she checked through. It didn't list the ingredients in the bread which is where the sesame seeds were.

I wonder if this is why they have removed the large "unwrapped" pretzel that they stocked.. Surely a store that sells any trace of nuts in their products would cause some kind of cross contamination. My point is, if they were at this level of risk, surely they would have avoided the store altogether.

iamtheoneneo · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:16

I think its crazy that she actually died from it. I wonder if she wasn't on a plane at the time if she could have been saved, or if the body just had a complete shutdown from the product that it was always a lose lose situation.

Very sad.

Are Pret in the wrong?
A little - like how hard is it just to list all the ingredients. It might not be law but its just a matter of printing it on a label. Not exactly difficult.

antijoke · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:32

If you have such a severe allergy WTF are you doing eating out in the first place.

cu3ed · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:42

It was labeled not anywhere and the oil was used to bake the bread as far as I believe.
Either the baker never told anyone what ingredients they used, or Pret never bothered to find out.

seaviewuk · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:48

cheesyboy said:
As a further thought on the tragedy, should airlines not carry some Epipens on board as part of an emergency kit?

Just been reading through some inquest articles and the flight concerned did have an Epipen in the onboard medical kit but the cabin crew failed to inform the doctor attending to Natasha.

Also her dad injected the second epipen from Nastasha's bag into the same location (right thigh) as the first epipen injection (maybe through sheer panic?) when according to a medical expert a second injection should have been into the opposite thigh.

FoxEye · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:54

antijoke said:
If you have such a severe allergy WTF are you doing eating out in the first place.

Or at the very least, can't find ingredients/shop can't tell you? Don't eat there. Would have thought that would have been an established, unbreakable rule.

antijoke · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:58

FoxEye said:
Or at the very least, can't find ingredients/shop can't tell you? Don't eat there. Would have thought that would have been an established, unbreakable rule.

Yep, if I was in her situation and a shop couldn't tell me, then I wouldn't bother.

ethan · 1 Oct 2018 at 16:58

I'm not in anyway unsympathetic to this needless death but what is the usual medical way of dealing with this condition and is there a self remedy treatment sufferers could carry in the event of an emergency?

DB_SamX · 1 Oct 2018 at 17:05

Semple said:
I'm surprised there's not been a thread on this already.

Anyone who's watched/read the news in the last week will undoubtedly have come across the sad story of the young girl who died after eating a baguette purchased from Pret.

Having the inquest is obviously a good thing, as i would hope regulations change and force any shop selling hand-made sandwiches (regardless of how small the business is) to put individual labels on products to list ingredients/allergen info.

What gets me is your typical SJW's who are plastering all over social media about how Pret should be sued. Whilst absolutely tragic, Pret have only followed what the regulations outline needs to be done, so in theory haven't done anything wrong.

The other thing that crosses my mind, if you have an allergy that could actually kill you, as opposed to mild swelling/rashes etc. Why on earth would you not have asked at the till whether the item you're purchasing has such and such in it. A minor inconvenience to the staff, and perhaps the queue of customers, but would no doubt have saved this girls life.

I think all we can hope to see from this tragedy is much better labelling on food products to prevent another person from needlessly dying.

I'd agree too, as sympathetic as I am to the family and friends.

Raymond Lin · 1 Oct 2018 at 17:51

The pain the family felt at the time must be unimaginable and I can't even picture how the mum was feeling getting that phone call.

Side note…

Growing up in HK I never knew allergy like this is even a thing, its not a thing at all in Asia, every one eat everything and anything so to speak and if you have any allergy that can kill you, do not go to China. They take the attitude that "a little bit is fine". Is there shrimp in this?? "nope", but they will put in prawn paste in the sauce…"what? it's not shrimp!" is the reply.

Randomface74 · 1 Oct 2018 at 17:57

Obviously it's bad an they'll have to improve labelling.
I don't see why it's been plastered over the news every day since the story broke. We all heard it in the first day or two, there's nothing else to say about it.

LeeUK · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:00

If you got an allergy that can kill you surely you would be more care full of what you buy and where from. If you can't have sesame seed because it will kill you then you don't rock up to a sandwich shop and pick a random sandwich up. Even if it doesn't contain seeds, it will have still been made in an environment where seeded sandwiches have been made.

Dis86 · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:02

Semple said:
The other thing that crosses my mind, if you have an allergy that could actually kill you, as opposed to mild swelling/rashes etc. Why on earth would you not have asked at the till whether the item you're purchasing has such and such in it. A minor inconvenience to the staff, and perhaps the queue of customers, but would no doubt have saved this girls life.

Because we live in a society where people don't take responsibility for their own actions anymore. It's always someone else to blame. Never the individual.

@LeeUK If I had an allergy that severe I'd be preparing everything myself so i knew exactly what was going in to my food.

antijoke · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:08

I had no idea this happened in 2016, thought the way it was going on in the news it was last week or something

Rroff · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:16

Dis86 said:
Because we live in a society where people don't take responsibility for their own actions anymore. It's always someone else to blame. Never the individual.

Drives me up the wall especially in a work context where people won't lift a finger to sort, or even just report, an obvious problem because it "isn't their job", or would cause them extra effort, etc.

UnworthyBean · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:26

ethan said:
I'm not in anyway unsympathetic to this needless death but what is the usual medical way of dealing with this condition and is there a self remedy treatment sufferers could carry in the event of an emergency?

Generally an EpiPen. Two of which were used in this case. I'm guessing she was either severely allergic or there was a high percentage of sesame.

All admit I haven't read the story fully so some of those may have been answered

Efour · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:27

If I had a life threatening allergy no freaking way would I be eating ready made sandwiches that can so easily be cross contaminated let alone not contain a 101% comprehensive list of ingredients.

It's tragic but stupid. I heard her parents on radio4 and it was heart breaking but somehow I blame them and her still, not the retailer.

MissChief · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:30

ethan said:
I'm not in anyway unsympathetic to this needless death but what is the usual medical way of dealing with this condition and is there a self remedy treatment sufferers could carry in the event of an emergency?

They carried two Epipens, shots of adrenaline to counteract the attack but they both weren't sufficient.

The ingredients list didn't need to be shown on the product because it was made in the restaurant/store. The store had to only display a list of ingredients on a shelf-edge ticket which, the family claim, was missing. Pret also had 5 other allergy scares in the year prior to this happening too. The ingredients of the sandwich itself didn't contain sesame flour but the bread itself had sesame flour in it.

LeeUK · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:34

Rroff said:
Drives me up the wall especially in a work context where people won't lift a finger to sort, or even just report, an obvious problem because it "isn't their job", or would cause them extra effort, etc.

Why should a coffee shop staffer confirm if there are allergens in the sandwich or not when they don't know for sure. Especially when they only put the sandwich together, they didn't make the bread from scratch or mix up the bought-in sandwich filler, etc.

Would it then be OK for the min wage employee to be blamed?

Rroff · 1 Oct 2018 at 18:38

LeeUK said:
Why should a coffee shop staffer confirm if there are allergens in the sandwich or not when they don't know for sure. Especially when they only put the sandwich together, they didn't make the bread from scratch or mix up the bought-in sandwich filler, etc.

Would it then be OK for the min wage employee to be blamed?

That isn't what I'm saying. But on the other hand if a min wage staffer knew an item was marked as free of sesame seeds but saw the products coming through had them on how many would take action?