The mother of a girl who died from an allergic reaction to a Pret A Manger baguette described hearing her child's last moments over the phone
- The mother of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died from an allergic reaction after eating a Pret A Manger sandwich in 2016, has described listening to her final moments over the phone.
- Natasha died during a flight from London to Nice, France, with her father. Her mother was waiting to catch a later plane to join them.
- A coroner in the UK last week concluded last week that Pret A Manger had not properly warned Natasha of what she was about to eat.
- Pret A Manger has since apologized for Natasha's death and said it "will learn from it."
The mother of a 15-year-old who died from an allergic reaction to a Pret A Manger baguette has described listening to her daughter die on the phone.
Tanya Ednan-Laperouse, whose daughter Natasha died of an anaphylactic shock in 2016, said that her husband, Nadim, called her with the news that her daughter was having a serious reaction to the sandwich.
The baguette's bread contained sesame - to which Natasha was severely allergic - but was not labelled to reflect this.
Ednan-Laperouse said her husband called her to say Natasha was reacting badly to something she had eaten. He called again a few hours later to say Natahsa was on the brink of death, and had only moments to say goodbye.
Natasha had bought and eaten a baguette with artichoke, olive, and tapenade shortly before boarding a flight from London's Heathrow Airport to Nice, France, for the summer holidays.
She suffered a cardiac arrest and an anaphylactic shock while on the plane. The father and daughter went straight to a hospital in Nice when they landed, where doctors tried to save her life.
Earlier in the day Nadim had called Tanya to say that their daughter was seriously ill, and that she had to fly to France immediately, Tanya told the BBC's "Today" radio program on Monday.
"Nad was calling regularly to say it was really bad, that she [Natasha] wasn't expected to make it," Tanya said, according to The Telegraph.
She managed to get a flight to France that day but the plane was delayed by six hours, she told the program. She was at the departure gates at London's Stansted Airport waiting to board a flight to Nice when her husband called, asking her to say goodbye to their daughter.
"Nad phoned to say: 'She's going to die, she's going to die, within a minute, maybe two. You've got to say goodbye to her now. This is your only chance,'" she told the BBC.
Her last words to her daughter were, according to the Mail on Sunday: "Tashi, I love you so much, darling. I'll be with you soon. I'll be with you."
She added to the BBC: "The shock - I can't - it's actually the grief immediately. I spoke to her and then I actually collapsed. I was just alone. I was aware that there were lots of people around me, children were running around - I couldn't scream or howl or anything.
"I just literally fell into - I was engulfed by grief, and just lost ability to stand or get up again."
Upon arriving to the hospital in Nice, Tanya said: "I just held her and kept talking to her," until hospital officials took away Natasha's body.
An inquest in the UK, where Ednan-Laperouse bought the baguette, concluded last Friday that Pret A Manger had not properly warned her of what she was about to eat.
The coroner, Dr Sean Cummings, called Pret A Manger's allergy labeling "inadequate."
Cummings added, according to ITV News: "There was no specific allergen information on the baguette packaging or on the (food display cabinet) and Natasha was reassured by that."
UK food-labeling regulations do not require restaurants that make and package food on-site, like Pret A Manger, to label allergen information on each individual product, according to the BBC.
British coroner courts aim to determine the cause of a person's death, but do not attribute responsibility.
But Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse have blamed Pret A Manger for their daughter's death.
Tanya said, according to The Telegraph: "We now know she didn't die on our watch - she died on Pret's watch, and all thanks to the absence of two little words on the packaging of her sandwich.
"If the label had listed sesame seeds Natasha wouldn't have touched it and she'd still be alive."
The couple are now campaigning for UK food-labeling laws to change to protect other children with allergies. The coroner also said he would write to the government on his concerns about allergen labeling laws, ITV News reported last week.
Tanya said, according to the Telegraph: "We haven't touched her room. Her clothes are still on the floor. Her homework's on the table. We haven't unpacked her school bag or the bag she took that day.
"I still look for her on the street, in public places. Adidas trainers, long dark hair in a bun. I look for her. But she's just lost. You don't know how you carry on living."
Clive Schlee, the chief executive of Pret A Manger, said in a statement to Business Insider last week that the chain was "deeply sorry" and "will learn from this."