A mum has been thought her three-year-old “daughter was dying” after she was raced to hospital following being fed a pitta bread at nursery.
When she was just seven months old, Chelsea Garman’s daughter Pippin was diagnosed with anaphylactic allergies to dairy and egg. Despite the severity of her allergies, Chelsea said the family ‘do their best’ to ensure she lives life to the fullest.
Pippin had to be moved to a different nursery after her old one closed. The mum-of-four told the Manchester Evening News she felt like she’d ‘hit the jackpot’ when she found Broadway Day Nursery in Royton, Oldham.
“I went and viewed a few new nurseries but felt they lacked when it came to their allergy policies,” Chelsea explained. “At Broadway Day Nursery we felt like we hit the jackpot. The setting was inviting and clean, the aunties were caring and friendly, the children were curious and confident.”
Before Pippin started, Chelsea said she completed a detailed risk assessment with the nursery staff that laid out a number of precautions and processes to help keep Pippin safe. One of these was to ensure ingredients of every food item for Pippin was checked with every single food delivery, because ingredients can change.
But when Chelsea collected her daughter on December 18, they hadn’t even walked out the door before she knew something was seriously wrong.
“I collected her a little earlier than usual at around 3:45pm and she had just started a snack of pitta bread and apple,” Chelsea said. “I didn’t think anything of it because most pitta breads are safe. She’d probably had around four mouthfuls of it.”
But those small bites were enough to trigger a life-threatening reaction. As the pair reached the door of the nursery, Pippin began to complain of a ‘funny tummy’ and feeling unwell – symptoms Chelsea recognised as incredibly serious.
“I looked at her and could see that her eyes were beginning to swell,” she continued. “I ran to the car and got her EpiPens and some Piriton and gave her some Piriton, but that was when I realised something wasn’t right.”
Chelsea rushed back up to the nursery and desperately asked the staff to check the ingredients of the snack Pippin had been eating as she arrived – a gluten free pitta bread that contained egg.
“I was absolutely furious at that point,” Chelsea said. “I told them they needed to call an ambulance right now and state anaphylaxis.”
As they did, she took her daughter into the nursery’s office and watched on in horror as her symptoms became worse and worse. “She was swelling even more, her eyes were starting to close, her lips were swollen, she was developing hives all over her face,” she said.
As Chelsea administered an EpiPen, she remembers hearing the nursery’s owner comforting the staff member who gave Pippin the pitta, telling them ‘it’s not your fault’. The 36-year-old said it is a moment that has stuck with her following the ‘traumatic’ episode.
“I thought, it absolutely is your fault,” she said. “But at that moment I was thinking that my daughter was actually going to die. I was by her side saying ‘do you know how much we love you? We absolutely adore you’. I’m so traumatised by it all.”
A spokesperson for the nursery apologised for the ‘upsetting incident‘ and said it was a ‘rare and unfortunate case of human error which should have been avoided’.
Within five minutes a first-aid responder had arrived and advised a second EpiPen shot as Pippin’s hives kept coming back worse than before. “She was asking on the walkie-talkie for an ETA for the ambulance, I could tell she was stressing,” Chelsea recalled. “My daughter is three years old and she’s tiny – those EpiPens are supposed to last her ten years. The amount of adrenaline in her body must have been massive.”
Pippin was blue-lighted to hospital where she was taken straight to resuscitation, where a team of consultants, doctors and nurses were waiting for her. As they worked, Chelsea said her daughter was ‘screaming in excruciating pain’ and itching herself so hard she made her arms, legs and tummy bleed. Chelsea described her daughter as ‘absolutely inconsolable’ because of the pain and discomfort of the reaction.
“I pleaded over and over again for someone to help her as I felt like my daughter was dying,” she said. “Her whole body was just hives. She was scratching, she made herself bleed, she wouldn’t have the steroid medicine, it took four people to pin her down because she was just so distressed. It was horrific.”
After about 45 minutes Pippin began to stabilise, and she was moved to a different ward where she stayed overnight. Thankfully Chelsea says she has come out ‘physically okay’ – but that the psychological toll on Pippin and the family has been huge.
“Her anxieties are coming out through play,” she explained. “So when we were role playing nurseries and she’s the mummy dropping off her baby she said ‘my baby has allergies’ and told me she wants to stay with her baby to make sure the food is safe.
“I just think she shouldn’t have that. We should be able to trust people in this day and age to serve her safe food. As a family it is hard but we do things, we go to Disneyland with her, we go everywhere because we know we can keep her safe and we don’t want to hold her back from those experiences.
“They just failed her at such a basic step. It’s just unfathomable.”
Chelsea added she feels she will ‘never recover’ from the experience and doesn’t want to ‘ever leave her again’. “I can’t leave the house with her, I’m just not brave enough at the minute,” she said.
“As a family, this has floored us. I struggle with huge anxiety leaving her, and other than work I don’t often let her out of my sight. I’ve been unable to eat properly, sleep properly and keep having horrific flashbacks. I don’t think I will ever get over this. I am traumatised.”
A spokesperson for Broadway Day Nursery said: “We’ve offered our sincerest apologies to the family involved in this very upsetting incident. They should not have had to go through this, and they have our deepest sympathies.
“Our team have extensive experience and training in managing children’s food allergies, and this should never have happened. However, this was a very rare and unfortunate case of human error which should have been avoided.
“As a result, we have reported the incident to Ofsted so that we can be reviewed, and we have taken steps to ensure this never happens again.” Ofsted said they take all complaints seriously but added they do not comment on individual cases.
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