SON LIFELESS IN FATHER'S ARMS AFTER EATING, DOCTORS FORGOT MOST IMPORTANT WARNING

In another nut allergy death, 11-year-old Oakley Debbs died during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend after eating a piece of pound cake.

To commemorate his short but full life, his friends and family began wearing red sneakers to help raise awareness about the reason Oakley died. Red was chosen because it was Oakley’s favorite color.

Family friends had ordered a Thanksgiving basket with a ham, which contained pound cake for dessert for the family, which was on vacation in Maine.

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“We didn’t even see the cake; it had just been opened up and set on the island of the kitchen,” Merrill Debbs, Oakley’s mom, commented.

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Oakley looked at the pound cake, and did not see any signs of nuts.

“He thought it was just a piece of cake,” his father, Robert Debbs, noted.

“But when he ate it, he come over and said it might have contained nuts.”

The pound cake was eventually determined to contain walnuts.

“Merrill did what we usually do, she gave him Benadryl [pills],” Robert explained. “And he came back and said he felt fine.”

When he started getting ready for bed a little while later, he had a hive on his lip and was feeling pain in his chest, but he was breathing fine.

Fifteen minutes later, Oakley started to vomit.

“He started throwing up and from there it was a tornado of issues,” Merrill noted. “We called 911. By the time the ambulance got there – about 10 minutes later – he was blue.”

They actually had an EpiPen, but had never needed it before when dealing with food allergies. The family says they did not use it because doctors never told them needed to.

EMTs gave him two doses of epinephrine, but it turned out to be too late. He died four days later at the hospital.

“I wasn’t aware, no one told me,” his mom said “I don’t think my beautiful, amazing, talented, adorable son should have passed away.”

Note that Oakley’s family established the Red Sneaker Foundation to help educate others about food allergies and what to do in an emergency.

Source: AWM
Photo: AWM

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SON LIFELESS IN FATHER'S ARMS AFTER EATING, DOCTORS FORGOT MOST IMPORTANT WARNING