“I held her in my arms as she took her last breath, moments before we arrived to the hospital. A true tragedy and a real life nightmare,” Baxendale’s friend Hailey Joann Green wrote.
A fellow dancer who was present when Orla Baxendale died after taking a bite of a mislabeled cookie has spoken out about her friend’s devastating final moments.
“I held her in my arms as she took her last breath, moments before we arrived to the hospital. A true tragedy and a real life nightmare,” Baxendale’s friend, Hailey Joann Green, wrote on Instagram. “I am heartbroken to know she is gone.”
Baxendale, 25, was living out her dream as a professional dancer. She was with fellow dancers when she took a bite of a vanilla florentine cookie from a box purchased at a Stew Leonard’s supermarket in Connecticut that did not list peanuts as an ingredient. Baxendale was highly allergic to peanuts.
She went into anaphylactic shock and died.
The 25-year-old’s roommate Christine Flores spoke with Inside Edition.
“She really brought so much life to everyone around her,” Flores says.
Flores, who also has a peanut allergy, says she was furious when she learned the package Baxendale was eating from was mislabeled.
The roommate says Baxendale was hypervigilant about her severe peanut allergy. “She carried around three EpiPens almost everywhere she went. She was super diligent about it,” Flores says.
Baxendale’s friends reportedly injected Baxendale with the EpiPen she had on her, but her allergic reaction was so severe, it could not save her.
Allergist Akansha Ganju says it is imperative to know how to use an EpiPen correctly.
“The way I like to look at this is, 'Orange to the thigh, blue to the sky,'” Ganju tells Inside Edition. She says to take off the blue cap then press the EpiPen, which can go through clothing, into the side of the thigh.
“You’ll hear the click and you will hold it for three seconds,” the allergist says.
Ganji says Baxendale was correct to keep more than one EpiPen on hand.
“There are instances that you might need more than one EpiPen,” Ganji says. “After three to five minutes and you don’t see improvements of your symptoms, or your symptoms are coming back, you do want to use your second EpiPen.”
It is estimated more than six million Americans are allergic to peanuts.
