Teen dies from anaphylactic reaction after celebrating 18th birthday dinner at Greenwich restaurant

BY JAMES TWOMEY
james@slpmedia.co.uk

A teenager who died from an allergic reaction after eating a burger while celebrating his 18th birthday was not told there were allergens in his food, a coroner has said.

Owen Carey was dining with his family at the Byron Burger restaurant in Greenwich Peninsula in April 2017 when he suffered “a severe food induced anaphylactic reaction from food eaten and ordered at a restaurant”.

Mr Carey was allergic to many things including dairy and had ordered a grilled chicken breast and fries after he made serving staff aware of his allergies.

But the chicken was marinated in buttermilk, which caused Mr Carey to have a fatal allergic reaction.

The hearing was told that Mr Carey ate half of his chicken before he felt his lips tingling and experienced stomach problems – he collapsed 55 minutes later outside the London Eye.

Mr Carey, from Crowborough in Sussex, died later at St Thomas’s Hospital.

The coroner said: “The menu was reassuring in that it made no reference to any marinade or any potential allergenic ingredient in the food selected.

The deceased was not informed that there were allergens in the order.

Speaking outside Southwark Coroners’ Court, Owen’s mum, Moira Carey, said he was “always smiling and wanted to get the most out of life”.

His father, Paul Carey, said he was “an excellent chap, a beautiful boy and a great mate”.

Owen’s sister, Emma Kocher, said: “It’s simply not good enough to have a policy which relies on verbal communication between the customer and their server, which often takes place in a busy, noisy restaurant where the turnover of staff is high and many of their customers are very young.

“This leaves far too much room for error on an issue we know far too well can cost lives. We hope we can bring about change with Owen’s Law for better allergen labelling in restaurants.

“Everyone did everything by the book, which was why it was such a huge, huge shock to then get that phone call that Owen had collapsed.”

Byron’s chief executive Simon Wilkinson said: “I would like to extend both Byron’s and my deepest condolences to Owen’s family and his many friends.

“We take allergies extremely seriously and have robust procedures in place.

Although those procedures were in line with all the rules and guidelines, and we train our staff to respond in the right way, it is a matter of great regret and sadness that our high standards of communicating with our customers were not met during Owen’s visit.

“We believe that Byron always did its best to meet our responsibilities, but we know that this will be of no comfort to Owen’s family.

“We have heard what the coroner said about the need to communicate about allergies.

It is clear that the current rules and requirements are not enough and the industry needs to do more – more to help support customers with allergies and more to raise awareness of the risks of allergies.

“We will make it our priority to work with our colleagues across the restaurant industry to ensure that standards and levels of awareness are improved.”