Peanut-allergy death at Camp Sacramento prompts lawsuit
By Andy Furillo, Sacramento Bee
The parents of a 13-year-old girl with a peanut allergy who went into shock and died after eating a night-time snack at Camp Sacramento have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
Louis Giorgi and his wife, Joanne, charged in the suit, filed Friday in Sacramento Superior Court, that information had been conveyed “in writing and in person numerous times” to camp operators about their daughter Natalie’s peanut allergy. The girl was “conscientious about avoiding foods that contained peanuts or peanut by-products” and there were other children at the camp who shared the same allergy – a fact known to camp personnel, according to the lawsuit.
“Obviously it’s something we find no joy in pursuing,” Louis Giorgi said of the lawsuit, “but it is consistent with our approach to accomplish the goal to help raise awareness of people, to pay attention to this and know it can be fatal. We need to take simple steps to protect all of our children. There can never be another Natalie. And there should never be another Natalie. It can be prevented.”
Natalie Giorgi went into an anaphylactic shock July 26 after eating a Rice Krispie treat during a hula hoop contest on her family’s last night of a four-day vacation at the popular, city-owned Camp Sacramento facility near Lake Tahoe that has been visited by untold thousands of families since it was founded in the 1930s.
I have friends and family who are near and dear to me who have children that have this allergy. And I have heard first hand accounts of the battles at school they have had. Some parents act like you are ruining their kids lives if they can’t bring peanut butter sandwiches in their lunches. Unfortunately, change usually only happens when there are lawsuits and court decisions.