Father Criticizes School for Delay in Helping Daughter During Severe Allergic Reaction at Prom

NEW YORK — A 17-year-old Long Island girl suffered anaphylactic shock at her high school prom last week, and her father is criticizing the school for allowing potentially critical time to elapse when officials allegedly charged her with use drugs, the family says.

Adrianna Varghese, who has severe allergies to tree nuts and peanuts, was in Half Hollows Hills High School West for the dance on Friday night when she ate a cookie, she and her dad say. Her throat began to close up, and Varghese and her father say the girl asked if the candies had nuts in them. She claims that an administrator responded in the affirmative.

The school knows that Varghese is allergic to those nuts, her family says. She has been in the same district since fifth grade. In sixth grade, she accidentally had a granola bar and the school needed to administer an EpiPen to her.

She went to the nurse’s office when her symptoms worsened Friday and told them she needed help for an allergic reaction, her family says. They say that the school staff insisted on asking him about the drugs and finally gave him Benadryl.

The young woman vomited it up and called her father for help. She lives down the street from the school and arrived with her EpiPen in a matter of minutes, she says. The nurse took the EpiPen from the dad’s hand and administered it herself.

It ended up being fine. But his father, Daniel, says the nurse should have recognized his symptoms as indicators of anaphylactic shock. He also claims that he was the one who called the ambulance.

He asked why they didn’t call an ambulance and that’s when he says they called 911. The school denies this and says they called 911 right before he arrived.

A spokesperson for the school district said in a statement that the health and well-being of its students is always the top priority, which is why a nurse was on-site for large-scale events like Friday’s prom.

“When our nurse was notified that this student was ill, she took immediate action,” the statement said. “The nurse began assessing the student’s vital signs, asked questions to assess what care was needed, began treatment of an allergic reaction, including administration of Benadryl and a non-patient-specific Epi-Pen, and contacted the student’s parents and first responders.

“From the time the nurse was called and began treating the child to the time first responders arrived, approximately 15 minutes had passed,” the district added. “We are grateful that our student has recovered and returned to school.”