The consequences for bullying seem to be getting more and more serious. Schools are suspending kids for what would have just been “playing around” 20 or 30 years ago. But there is reason for the strictness: bullying can have unintended consequences. A group of kids in one school is about to face that reality for the rest of their lives as they live with what they did to one of their classmates.
Food allergies are something that everybody needs to take seriously. While not everyone suffers from them, the people who do can be incredibly vulnerable even to the tiniest amounts. Often, people try to say that those with food allergies are just complaining too much. They don’t take the allergies seriously, and bad things happen when that occurs. One young boy has now died because his classmates never learned this important lesson.
Karabir Cheema, or Karan as he was known, has now been pronounced dead after an incident involving his classmates throwing cheese down his shirt.
Karan suffered from all sorts of severe allergies to dairy, gluten, wheat, and nut products. This wasn’t an average allergy either, as his tragic death at just 13 years of age made clear. The young boy also struggled to breathe often due to his asthma and needed special treatment for his skin because of eczema.
Classmates of Karan’s started to chase him during the lunch period on June 28, 2017. They knew of his significant allergies, yet they decided to torture him anyway. One student threw a piece of cheese and it managed to get down Karan’s shirt.
He instantly went into anaphylactic shock and remained unconscious even after the paramedics arrived. They did everything that they possibly could to save Karan’s life, but from the beginning it was a long shot.
“The call came in at 11:40am,” said paramedic Kierin Oppatt. “We arrived on the scene at 11:47am. The call came in as just an allergic reaction.”
“On arrival at the scene I immediately knew it was life-threatening and that the patient had a high risk of going into cardiac and respiratory arrest.”
It only took seconds for the cheese to cause Karan to break out into itchy, red hives and for his skin to start heating up like a furnace. The epi-pen used by the nurse didn’t do its job to stop the allergic reaction, and sadly the paramedics didn’t arrive in time.
Karan stopped breathing while the paramedics worked to save his life. Oppatt told Mail Online all about the experience, and it’s an incredibly sad account to read.
“I was in the process of drawing up inter-muscular adrenaline when I was informed by my colleague that Karan had stopped breathing,” he said.
CPR and electric resuscitation techniques proved ineffective, but Karan lived for another 10 days in an unconscious state. On July 9, he passed away with his whole family right by his side.
This entire tragedy would have been prevented if these kids had just taken Karan’s allergies seriously. Kids will be kids, yes. But intentionally shoving something you know someone is allergic to down their shirt is a whole different level of terrible.
The other student has been taken out of school, and only time will tell what happens next.
“I am devastated as a mother after losing my son and my family has lost their brother,” Karan’s mother, Rina Cheema told Mail Online. “He was a very, very bright young boy. He was so bright he could have been anything he wanted. I brought him up myself. I trained him to read all about his condition. We want answers.”
Keep this family in your thoughts today as they deal with the tragic death of their beloved son and brother.
