19-year-old dies from eating friends cookie – 03-15-2013
A college freshman who’d avoided nuts for over ten years has died after eating half a cookie made with peanut oil.
Cameron Groezinger-Fitzpatrick had some exciting times ahead. He was studying international business, had plans to study abroad in Australia, and was on his way home for spring break.
Since the 19-year-old was 8, he’d known he was allergic to peanuts.
His mother, Robin Fitzpatrick, told ABCnews.com her was asthmatic and discovered in high school he was allergic to all after tossing his inhaler into a pile of acorns.
Traces of the nuts later caused him to have a severe reaction. One he, nonetheless, recovered from with prompt treatment.
Last Friday, Groezinger-Fitzpatrick had been home just two hours in Plymouth, Massachusetts from Bryant University in Rhode Island.
The friend would later recall Groezinger-Fitzpatrick saying, ‘ah, the hell with it, I’m sure it’s fine.’
Minutes later, he was anything but fine.
With him doubled over in pain and turning black and blue, Fitzpatrick scrambled to find son’s Epi-Pen in his still-packed bags as he yelled ‘I can’t breathe!’
Unable to locate it, Fitzpatrick found one of the life-saving epinephrine auto-injectors she still kept at her home.
But her Epi-Pen was expired by two months and, though her son’s condition was quickly deteriorating, emergency operators on the phone told Fitzpatrick not to use the medication.
A doctor would later tell the shell-shocked mother she should have used the expired Epi-Pen, though it may not have worked.
A firefighter neighbor would soon bring over his own Epi-Pen to administer to Groezinger-Fitzpatrick and 15 emergency workers would perform CPR on the teenager for two hours when he was finally taken to the hospital.
However, it was of no use.
‘I was begging so much,’ Fitzpatrick said, ‘these people were crying and working on him, thinking, “We’re only doing this for the mother.”‘
A tearful Fitzpatrick told ABC her son had big plans in life and made a bucket list at age 9.
“He always wanted to do something big,” Fitzpatrick said.
Groezinger-Fitzpatrick was a registered organ donor, so at least one wish from that years-old list will be fulfilled. His desire to one day save a life.
