A former producer of breakfast show This Morning has been left brain damaged after nearly dying from a nut allergy.
Amy May Shead was on holiday in Budapest with friends, and out to dinner when she ordered a chicken dish in a restaurant after being assured several times that it did not contain nuts.
The 29-year-old’s mother later revealed she had told the restaurant she was allergic to nuts and even showed them an allergy card in Hungarian.
After taking only one bite, the young woman began to suffer a catastrophic anaphylactic reaction. She then injected herself with two Epipens, which weren’t enough to combat the severity of the attack.
Amy then went into cardiac arrest, and it took six minutes for the paramedics to revive her – by which point she had suffered severe brain damage due to a lack of oxygen. She is now completely paralysed and confined to a wheelchair.
While she can still hear and understand what people are saying, she cannot communicate.
After ten and a half months in St. Thomas’ and Guys Hospital, and then almost a year in an NHS rehab unit Amy was transferred to a Specialist care facility, where she now lives.
According to Birmingham Mail no medical insurance can be claimed as her allergy was lifelong and therefore excluded from her policy. The restaurant responsible also held no public liability insurance, so Amy’s family cannot claim compensation.
The Amy May Trust has since been set up to raise awareness about allergic reactions and fundraise to pay for her fulltime medical care.
