Craig McKinnon was with his girlfriend Jess Prinsloo in South Africa. A cup of tea and a spoon marked the sad end for her.
Craig McKinnon he had prepared everything for the trip to South Africa with his girlfriend Jess Prinsloo was unforgettable. Much of her family lives in South Africa, and for him there was no better place to propose. But a few days later, Craig returned to London with the ashes of his girlfriend.
As published by the media Mirrorit is believed that 24-year-old Jess, who had a acute dairy allergy suffered a fatal reaction after using the wrong spoon to stir your tea.
The couple were a week into their dream trip to South Africa when, on December 27, Craig popped the question at God’s Window observation deck in Mpumalanga: “‘Will you marry me?’ It was the happiest day for him, when he heard from the other side: “Yes, I want to” through tears. But the idyllic vacation in South Africa ended in a nightmare.
Craig is empty and heart-piercing, remembering: “Most of her family live in South Africa and she hadn’t been back for six years, so I knew there was no better place to propose. “My voice cracked as I knelt down and asked: ‘Will you marry me?‘ She was like, ‘Oh my gosh’ and started crying before saying yes,” she reveals. Mirror.
But after celebrating the next few days with champagne and “lots of laughs,” they headed to Jess’s mother’s house in Johannesburg on December 30. It was here that Jess came into contact with dairy products.
In a matter of seconds, the worst happened: he began to suffer anaphylaxisa potentially fatal reaction that causes the throat to close up, and he died in hospital the next day, on New Year’s Eve.
As the story could be reconstructed, Jess – who worked as a marketing executive – always carried two EpiPens with her in case she suffered anaphylaxis, but this time they failed. The EpiPens is a pen designed to automatically inject a dose of epinephrine on the person’s thigh to stop an allergic reaction.
Craig said: “When Jess died, a part of me died too, but there is no one to blame for her passing. But, gosh, she had had several accidents.”
Craig and Jess met in college in 2019 and moved in together after the Covid-19 lockdown in 2021.
The day she got sick, Creig recalled that Jess’s brother woke her up and told her that she was having a bad reaction. He “saw her sitting on the toilet seat, really struggling to breathe. She had used an EpiPen, but she was not having the effect that she normally has.”
Jess was taken to the hospital where doctors fought to save her, but couldn’t.
Craig believes that years of allergic reactions had a cumulative effect on Jess, who had been allergic to dairy since she was nine months old. She remembered Jess telling her how she had to be revived after eating milk in a curry when she was 18 years old.
She also remembered another episode that she had with her, marking how difficult it was for Jess to live with that disease. “She asked for a vegan dessert that should have been dairy free, had the allergic reaction and required antihistamines, an EpiPen and a trip to the hospital. I haven’t had dairy for about three years because it just wasn’t worth the risk.”
After Jess’s death, Craig, of Salisbury, Wilts, faced medical bills of £3,700 plus £1,200 in coroner’s fees.
Relatives of Jess launched a page of GoFundMe to cover the bills and pay for his funeral in South Africa on January 6. Meanwhile, Craig knows that nothing he will experience from now on will be the same without Jess.