This is the first picture of a university student who suffered a severe allergic reaction and died while eating a simple ‘chicken and chips’ meal on holiday.
Lily King, 18, took a week-long trip to Rabat, Morocco, with her mum in June to celebrate getting top marks in the first year of her economics degree at the University of Exeter.
On the final day of her holiday, Lily and mum Aicha, 56, went for dinner at a nearby restaurant, which they had eaten at before.
Upon arrival, Mrs King, who is Moroccan and speaks Arabic, was ‘explicit’ with staff about her daughter’s allergies and told them to avoid cooking anything containing dairy, fish, shellfish, sesame, and nuts.
Her father Michael King, 73, told the Mail his wife was very clear about what their daughter ‘could and could not eat’, but within minutes of being served a simple chicken and chips meal she began struggling to breathe and rushed outside to throw up.
Mr King said Lily tried to use her epi-pen, which she kept on her at all times, but in the ensuing panic restaurant staff refused to let her mother leave without paying the bill, wasting valuable time.
‘They delayed her from leaving the restaurant by a few minutes, which could have actually saved Lily’s life,’ he added.
A tearful Mrs King explained how she requested a simple meal of grilled chicken and chips not mixed in oil for Lily.
The waiter is said to have brought out a meal of chicken, vegetables with chips and a sauce on the side.
She said in the dark of the restaurant, the vegetables looked like prawns, so she instantly told the waiter to take the meal away.
‘I explained to him [the waiter] in Arabic three times ‘Please be careful, she is very, very allergic’.
But the waiter assured her the ‘prawns’ were just carrots cooked in nothing but olive oil, and there was nothing unsafe on Lily’s plate.
Within minutes of taking a bite on the carrot, Lily began to react to the food, complaining of an itchy throat which soon developed into nausea.
She informed her mum of the symptoms, who gave her a Piriton and told her to use the toilet. But when Lily came back, she claimed to be unable to breathe.
Mrs King told the Mail: ‘I started calling the ambulance and we went outside, so she can try to breathe.
‘We [used] the Epi Pen. But I left my bag inside the restaurant, and it had my passport and everything in it, I can’t leave it, and I went [inside] to get it back.
‘I told the restaurant, ‘my daughter [is] dying outside’. He said to me, to pay the bill before you’re leaving.’
Mrs King said after spending vital minutes settling the bill she went outside the restaurant to help her daughter, who by this point had used her second Epi-Pen, to no avail.
‘I’m screaming, there are security guards outside the door, but no one is helping me, nothing,’ she said through tears.
With the ambulance nowhere in sight, Mrs King was forced to drive her own daughter to the hospital- but in the 30 minutes it took to get there, Lily had already suffered a heart attack.
She then suffered from a catatonic fit, which rendered her brain dead, and died on her mother’s shoulder.
‘She told me “I love you, goodbye” and then passed away,’ her heartbroken mother added.
Doctors kept her on life support for three days, but with no brain activity they were forced to pull the plug and let Lily slip away.
They spend little time with the Kings throughout the ordeal, and when asked what could have caused her death, they explained the situation in the restaurant.
Yet despite this, her cause of death was simply listed as ‘heart attack’ on the death certificate, and now the Kings fear they will ‘never know’ how or why Lily’s allergies were ignored by the restaurant.
‘There’s no other cause I can imagine that could have caused her to stop breathing,’ Mr King insisted.
Lily died on June 23 and had two autopsies, one in Morocco and another in England, before her body was released to her parents and she was buried in Beaconsfield on July 10.
Paying tribute to their daughter, Mr King said: ‘Lily was loved by many, many friends.
‘We had 60 or 70 of her friends and colleagues at the funeral, and they all signed a book of condolences, and they said the most marvellous things about her; how she was a shining light and made everybody laugh, and how she helped them with their problems.
‘She was a very caring girl and very intelligent.
‘With all her problems, she still managed to get to grammar school and get three A-Levels with grades for Exeter University to study Economics.
‘She just got her results for her first-year exams, and she got a first – that was the day before she had this anaphylactic shock.’
Mr King said police in Morocco launched an investigation into the restaurant, but the family remain in the dark as to the progress of the case.
He added: ‘It was taken out of the police’s hands and it got given to the prosecutor.
‘We were told we would be notified about the next steps.
‘We want to know what’s going on, we want to know whether it’s going to be brushed under the carpet or whether they’re going to do something about it.’
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