A group of parents wants to see a certain type of pen in every school. It’s not the kind of pen you write with. It’s one they say will save the lives of kids with allergies.
An Epi-pen is a pen-shaped dispenser that injects life-saving Epinephrine after a severe allergic reaction. A Virginia mom says every school should have one after her seven-year-old daughter died from an allergic reaction to eating a peanut.
Pendleton and other parents met with lawmakers on Wednesday to talk about the deaths of their kids because of allergies. Pendleton says she told the school about her daughter Amarria’s allergies yet somehow she ended up with a peanut.
She believes if the school would’ve been able to give her daughter a quick shot of Epinephrine she would still be here. Now, she’s on a mission to save more kids.
“I just think about her and it keeps me strong. And in retrospect just feeling as though I need to do this,” said mom, Laura Pendleton. “For me my grief process, for my healing just to know that another child is going to be safe.”
FOX 4 talked to several school districts in the metro about their use of the Epi-Pen. The KCK School District requires kids with allergies to have an Epi-Pen on file with their picture in the nurse’s office. Both Lee’s Summit and Ray-Pec schools have them as well.
In the Raymore Peculiar School District, kids need a not from a parent or a doctor. And, must be able to show the nurse they know how to use it.There is an Emergency Epinephrine Act which was referred to the House Subcommittee on Health in 2011.
The law requiring Epi-Pens in all Virginia School starts July 1, 2012.