NORTH TEXAS — Twenty-three-year-old Alison Pickering knew she had to be careful with peanuts.
It was a discovery her family made the day she came home from kindergarten with hives.
“She said, ‘Well, a friend of mine shared a chocolate Jiff sandwich with me.’ And I thought, ‘Oh!'” recalls her mother, Joy Pickering, “and it became clear that she had a peanut allergy.”
“She felt it in her lips and in her throat and so we went to the emergency room,” said her father, Grover Pickering.
Fortunately, those trips to the hospital were rare.
“She was always very careful. She rarely ate cookies that weren’t mine,” Joy Pickering said.
Her parents said caution was advised as she prepared for a first date just days before graduating from Tarleton State University in Stephenville last year.
Alison, they said, chose a restaurant she had been to before.
She ordered the mahi-mahi, a dish she had eaten there before.
“She would go to the same restaurants repeatedly and order the same dishes, you know. And that was very common,” her father said.
What Alison and even the wait staff didn’t know, the Pickerings said, was that the recipe had changed. Peanut sauce was added.
“She took a few bites and realized something was wrong,” said Grover Pickering. “She did her Epipen. The ambulance came. She even walked to the ambulance and talked to them, but somewhere along the way things went downhill.”
Alison never woke up.
“It’s tragic and it doesn’t have to happen to anyone else,” he said.
The Pickerings are now on a mission to raise awareness about the seriousness of food allergies.
“We would like to see more done to raise awareness among wait staff and customers,” said Joy Pickering.
The Texas Legislature passed the Sergio Lopez Food Allergy Awareness Act last year to improve training and communication among restaurant kitchen workers.
They call for clear, consistent communication in restaurants and comprehensive training for all restaurant staff.
They hope this will be extended to all restaurant staff.
They are also interested in working with the Texas Restaurant Association.
“To determine what guidelines can be put in place to help restaurants have better communication with their customers regarding ingredients, much like labels on items you buy at the grocery store,” says Grover Pickering.
It is a message they are confident will spare others the loss they have suffered.
“I know this is going to save lives,” Joy Pickering said.
