A tragedy is being investigated in Madisonville, KY, after police have been known as to the house of an 8-year-old boy who was discovered unresponsive and declared useless on the hospital a while later.
At about 6:30AM on Thursday, March 15, 2024, Madisonville Police have been contacted concerning the boy who was not respiration and located unresponsive.
Upon arrival on the residence, they discovered that the household had already introduced the boy to a close-by hospital emergency room. He was declared useless a short while later.
The household mentioned that on the earlier night, the boy had eaten some strawberries bought that day at his college fundraiser and confirmed indicators of a rash from an allergic response. They gave him Benadryl and a chilly bathtub, however at 10:30PM when the rash didn’t subside, they took him to the ER.
The boy was discharged at 1:30AM and returned residence, the place he turned into his pajamas and went to mattress.
Once they tried to wake him up for college the subsequent morning, he was discovered unresponsive.
The boy’s physique was subsequently transported to the native health worker’s workplace to endure an post-mortem.
Detectives investigating on the ER discovered that a number of others had are available in for therapy after consuming strawberries believed to have been bought from the identical fundraiser. As a precaution, the Hopkins County Well being Division issued a warning:
The Hopkins County Well being Division is issuing a warning advising residents to not eat any strawberries bought by the varsity fundraiser for Madisonville North Hopkins Excessive College and Hopkins County Central Excessive College athletics.
At present, the Division of Public Well being Environmentalists are taking samples of the strawberries to the state lab for testing. Though, this incident may very well be unrelated, the choice has been made to train warning and advise not consuming any of those strawberries.
I’ve suggested the faculties to eliminate any strawberries introduced by college students in lunches right now. Please don’t ship any strawberries to high school till additional discover.
There have been 443 flats distributed by North and 535 flats distributed by Central; these are distributed by Juicy Fruit LLC, Southern Grown and Sizemore Farms are the farms.
We’ll maintain the general public knowledgeable on our Fb and web site for Hopkins County Well being Division.
Denise Seaside, MS, BSN, RN
Public Well being Director
Reportedly, rumors started circulating that the strawberries had been laced with fentanyl or another adulterant, for which there was no factual foundation or substantiation.
Later the well being division issued the next replace:
In response to Dr. Christopher Kiefer, Medical Examiner, the incident involving strawberries seems to be like an remoted allergic response. He relates that this can be a preliminary report, so we nonetheless advise not consuming the strawberries at present.
We respect your cooperation and endurance as we get info to you as shortly as attainable. Please chorus from contacting the hospital or medical places of work except you want medical care, as they aren’t capable of take all these calls. We’ll maintain you knowledgeable.
Denise Seaside
Public Well being Director
Here’s a report from NewsNation describing the incident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/rNT_MIPE8JA
We at SnackSafely.com ship our heartfelt condolences to the household for his or her horrible loss. Though we all know little about them, we do know the allergic group grieves with them.
When tragedies like this happen, we often present methods for allergic people to comply with in an effort to stop comparable occurrences. However this can be a distinctive state of affairs the place little info was supplied.
We’re, nonetheless, left with a lot of questions we hope can be answered in the course of the course of the investigation:
Did the boy have any preexisting meals allergic reactions or situations?
If he did, was he prescribed epinephrine, and did the household have it readily available when he skilled what seemed to be a extreme response? Had been they informed to manage Benadryl by their doctor regardless that this follow is not thought-about acceptable as antihistamine can masks indicators of anaphylaxis?
What occurred on the ER?
We presume the boy was seen and finally discharged by hospital workers in the course of the household’s three-hour keep on the emergency room. Is that this presumption right, or did the household go away earlier than a medical skilled noticed the boy? Was the boy given epinephrine throughout his keep? Was the household warned about the potential of a biphasic response when anaphylaxis subsides for a lot of hours after which recurs later? Had been they given an epinephrine auto-injector upon leaving the hospital?
How may this have been an remoted incident when others who had consumed the strawberries visited the identical ER on the identical night time with comparable complaints?
In response to New York Allergy and Sinus Facilities, though restricted knowledge can be found on the prevalence of strawberry allergy, one examine discovered that 3 to 4% of kids aged 2 and beneath have been allergic to strawberries, a quantity that dropped beneath 1% later in childhood and maturity. It’s unlikely that a lot of school-aged youngsters who had not been beforehand recognized out of the blue developed strawberry allergic reactions on the identical time. How is that this attainable? May there have been another set off, like a pesticide or herbicide that was sprayed on the fruit?
Keep tuned. We’ll comply with up with solutions as soon as they grow to be accessible.
