A 14-year-old girl suffered a life-threatening allergic reaction when a man on her British Airways flight ‘wouldn’t stop eating his peanuts’. 

Joanna Jones, 39, says her daughter Poppy blacked out and needed oxygen and two EpiPen shots during a ‘nightmare’ eight-hour trip to London.

The ‘horrible’ situation emerged as they were 30,000 feet in the air – with a nurse who happened to be onboard rushing forward to help when staff frantically asked if there was a medic onboard.

Thankfully, Poppy was fine after being rushed to hospital when the plane landed safely at Gatwick.

But Joanna has accused the unidentified male passenger of ‘not caring that he was putting my daughter’s life at risk’ after he allegedly rejected staff pleas to stop eating his snack.

She said: ‘It was a nightmare for all of us and I really thought she might die. It was really, really frightening and it was all down to a passenger who carried on eating nuts despite at least two announcements not to.’

The mother and daughter, from Tooting, London, had been on their first post-lockdown break to Antigua with other family members when they stepped on the BA flight to come home.

The crew asked passengers not to eat nuts when they boarded, but Joanna claims to have seen the man snacking 10 rows ahead of them when they took off.

She told MailOnline: ‘I was worried and asked if we could be moved but there was no availability and the crew asked him to stop eating the nuts but he ignored the requests and carried on.’

Poppy suddenly went into anaphylaxis when the jet was three hours from landing.

Joanna gave her daughter two shots from Epipens, before the nurse helped to stabilise her and tried to check her blood pressure with ‘a monitor that didn’t work properly’.

Meanwhile, doctors from an emergency centre in Arizona issued instructions.

An emergency landing seemed on the cards, but Poppy made it through the last bit of the journey before being rushed to hospital upon landing, where she stayed for the rest of the day.

Joanna has called for strict new legislation to be brought in, making it illegal for people to eat nuts onboard a plane if someone is allergic to them.

‘Surely someone’s life is worth more than eating a few nuts?’ she has asked. ‘It’s crazy that more isn’t being done about this issue. All the cabin crew can do is ask someone not to eat nuts and that’s it – it’s ridiculous.’

It comes after another woman with a nut allergy claimed she was kicked off an American Airlines flight after cabin crew insisted first-class passengers be served the complimentary snacks.

A British Airways spokesperson said crew followed all procedures and there was no issue with any of the onboard equipment.

‘The safety and welfare of our customers is always our priority, and we take the issue of allergens very seriously’, they said.

‘Our crew cared for a customer who appeared to suffer an allergic reaction onboard, and they arranged for paramedics to meet the aircraft.’

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