Boy Dies After Classmate Throws Slice of Cheese in His Face | the Chronicle

The shocking death of Karanbir Cheema, 13 years old, after suffering severe anaphylactic shock at his William Perkin school in Greenford, when a classmate threw a slice of cheese in her face, shocked London. Three years after this tragic episode, the cause reached British justice, which considered the death as “extraordinarily unusual”.

This is how he declared in court Adam fox, pediatric allergy specialist at Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, explaining that severe skin contact reactions are “very rare” and “I was not aware of any other fatal cases”.

Forensic medicine Marie Hassell, who was also part of that investigation, claimed that the boy’s action of throwing the cheese at Cheema was “childish and without thinking”, but it was not calculated to cause death.

Cheema was given a slice of cheese half the size of a tissue that touched his neck, causing a reaction. “unprecedented”. “He took off his shirt, screamed and ran across the room in panic. I couldn’t breathe“Hassell describes.

At that time, the school injected him with EpiPen, an epinephrine device to treat life-threatening allergies, and the boy was rushed to hospital but suffered cardiac arrest. The lack of oxygen caused severe brain damage and he died ten days later.

Rina, the teenager’s mother, said that he was very allergic to wheat, gluten, eggs and tree nuts. Besides, had asthma and suffered from atopic eczema.

Because of this, the family asked for more school education on how allergies can be fatal.