A family is grieving in Florida after the death of 15-year-old Alexi Stafford, who, while at a slumber party, didn't notice the "made with peanuts" label on a box of Chips Ahoy cookies and suffered an allergic reaction. Now, her mother is calling on manufacturers to make peanut labels larger and more prominent on food product packaging.
Kellie Travers-Stafford posted the story of her daughter's passing on Facebook:
She wrote:
Our hearts are broken and we are still in shock. Our whole lives we dedicated to keeping our child safe from one ingredient, peanuts.
On Monday June 25, our 15 year old daughter, Alexi Ryann Stafford, while at a friends house, made a fatal choice. There was an open package of Chips Ahoy cookies, the top flap of the package was pulled back and the packaging was too similar to what we had previously deemed "safe" to her. She ate one cookie of chewy Chips Ahoy thinking it was safe because of the "red" packaging, only to find out too late that there was an added ingredient.... Reese peanut butter cups/chips. She started feeling tingling in her mouth and came straight home. Her condition rapidly deteriorated. She went into Anaphylactic shock, stopped breathing and went unconscious. We administered 2 epi pens while she was conscious and waited on paramedics for what felt like an eternity.
She died within 1& 1/2 hour of eating the cookie.
Kellie wonders what could have saved her daughter:
As a mother who diligently taught her the ropes of what was okay to ingest and what was not, I feel lost and angry because she knew her limits and was aware of familiar packaging, she knew what "safe" was. A small added indication on the pulled back flap on a familiar red package wasn't enough to call out to her that there was "peanut product" in the cookies before it was too late. I want to share our story with everyone because we want to spread awareness. The company has different colored packaging to indicate chunky, chewy, or regular but NO screaming warnings about such a fatal ingredient to many people. Especially children.
It's important to us to spread awareness so that this horrible mistake doesn't happen again.
Despite diligent teaching and a constant effort to avoid peanuts, Alexi's failure to notice a small label in the upper corner of a box of cookies made all the difference. Less than two hours later, she was dead. Perhaps, Travers-Stafford said, steps should be taken to stop this from happening again.
Many on Twitter seem to think so:
Chips Ahoy! responded with a tweet:
Some people were not impressed by the company's reaction:
While others think they made a bit of a point:
A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help Alexi's family with funeral expenses. Rest in peace, Alexi.
H/T - Fox News, New York Post
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