West Price Hill Family Sues Subway Restaurants For Daughter's Peanut Allergy Death
Parents who lost teenager daughter to deadly reaction to a peanut allergy after eating a Subway sandwich sues for food handling changes.
Reported by: Bill Price
Photographed by: Scott Wegener
Web produced by: Neil Relyea
A Tri-state family is suing the Subway restaurant chain, claiming cross contamination from a peanut butter cookie killed their highly allergic teenager.
Thirteen-year-old Emily Vonder Meulen of West Price Hill died two years ago after eating a sandwich bought at a Subway restaurant at the Cincinnati Mills mall in Forest Park.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital says it's not unusual to see children allergic to various foods like peanuts, rushed into the emergency room after an accidental exposure.
But one family who lost a daughter to a extreme allergic reaction to peanuts, says the restaurant she bought a sandwich from could have prevented her death.
Even before you walk into the Vonder Meulen house, you can see remembrances of Emily, their 13-year old daughter killed in 2006 because of an extreme peanut allergy.
But Catrina and Paul Vonder Meulen say that's what doctors have told them killed Emily in April, 2006.
Her doctors strongly suspect crumbs from a peanut butter cookie somehow got into a sandwich Emily ate.
A few minutes later, she suffered an extreme allergic reaction where she couldn't breathe.
Her mother was there and still remembers.
"This was frightening," recalled her mother. "The whites of her eyes were completely red. Her normally little pink cheeks were icy white."
Catrina Vonder Meulen tells 9News, "I want Emily back and I can't have that. And no parent should ever have to bury a child because of food. That's insane."
Allergy specialists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital agree that there is a growing number of children with food allergies.
All they can do is warn their patients and their families to be wary of restaurants, in general.
Dr. Assa'ad says Emily's asthma would have made her even more at risk for a life-threatening reaction to even a small exposure to peanuts.
"Patients who have food allergies and asthma are more at risk for serious events with food allergies," said Dr. Assa'ad.
9News contacted the Subway corporate offices in Connecticut. As of airtime, our calls had not been returned.
The Vonder Meulen's lawyer says he only filed the law suit against Subway in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on Thursday.
He estimates it could be a year before this food allergy case is heard in court.
"We feel the food handling practices are such that cross contamination is not considered. There's just a tsunami of food allergic kids coming up," said Dr. Assa'ad. "We want them to be safe. There has to be different ways of handling foods so that cross contamination does not happen."
Dr. Amal Assa'ad is Children's Hospital Allergy Director.
She says, "We usually tell patients who have food allergies or peanut allergies to be very careful or not even to go to restaurants – like Chinese restaurants , which always have peanuts or tree nuts."
