A teaching assistant thought a five-year-old boy who was having a fatal allergic reaction had a stomach bug when he vomited at school, an inquest has heard.
A jury at Peterborough Town Hall heard that Benedict Blythe was kept home from school because of illness the day before he vomited twice and collapsed at Barnack Primary School, in Stamford, Lincolnshire, where he was a reception pupil, on December 1 2021.
The schoolboy, who joined Mensa when he was aged four, was allergic to milk, eggs and some nuts and had asthma, the inquest was told.
He died in hospital that day and his cause of death was later found to be food-induced anaphylaxis, the inquest heard.
He had been kept off school the day before he died because he was feeling unwell overnight and vomited, but woke up “in good health” on the day of his death and was excited to open his advent calendar which had been filled with dairy-free chocolate by his parents, the court heard.
Sophie Brown, who was a teaching assistant at the school, said from her memory Benedict was “sick quite often” and she asked him questions after he vomited the first time that day to check if it was an allergic reaction.
She told the inquest: “When I said ‘are you feeling OK?’ he said ‘good’. He said ‘no’ to his mouth being tingling, there was nothing on his body that showed any hives.”
Ms Brown, who was trained in first aid and was aware of the boy’s allergies, said Benedict changed his clothes before he vomited a second time 10 minutes later.
Speaking about the minutes between Benedict vomiting the first and second time, she told the jury: “He was happy, he was giggling, he made a few comments about the book we were reading.”
Ms Brown told the inquest: “He was off the day before so I assumed it was a bug.”
She told the inquest she did not know at the time why he had been kept home from school the previous day.
The court heard milk for the pupils was kept in two separate fridges – one for dairy milk and one for dairy-free milk – in a staff room at the school, and that Benedict had his own bottle at the school to drink from.
Ms Brown said she does not recall who gave Benedict his oat milk that morning, which he refused to drink, but said it was not her.
The teaching assistant told the jury she cannot remember whether Benedict had asked for his inhaler after he had vomited.
The inquest previously heard, from Benedict’s mother Helen Blythe, that vomiting was “always” the first symptom of his allergic reactions and the school was provided with a management plan with his usual symptoms.
The court heard that after Benedict collapsed, his adrenaline auto-injector (AAI) was administered twice but he became unresponsive and was transported to Peterborough City Hospital, where he later died.
The inquest has been adjourned until Wednesday morning.
