Restaurant's new recipe cost Texas college student her life, parents say. Now they are on a mission to make changes.
NORTH TEXAS — Twenty-three-year-old Alison Pickering knew to watch out for peanuts.
It was a discovery her family made the day she came home from preschool with hives.
"She said, 'well, a friend of mine shared with me a chocolate Jiff sandwich.' And I was like, 'Oh!'," recalls her mother, Joy Pickering, "and it became evident she had a peanut allergy."
"She would feel it in her lips and in her throat and so we would take trips to the ER," her father, Grover Pickering, said.
Thankfully, those trips to the hospital were rare.
"She was always very very careful. She rarely ate cookies that were not mine," Joy Pickering said.
Her parents said that caution was evident as she prepared for a first date just days before her graduation from Tarleton State University in Stephenville last year.
Alison, they said, chose a restaurant she'd been to before. She ordered the mahi-mahi, a dish she'd previously eaten there.
"She would repeatedly go to the same restaurants and order the same dishes, you know. And that was a common thing," her father said.
What Alison and even the wait staff didn't know, the Pickerings said, was that the recipe had changed. Peanut sauce had been added.
"She took a few bites, realized something was wrong," said Grover Pickering. "She did her Epipen. The ambulance came. She actually walked to the ambulance talking to them, but somewhere along the way things went downhill."
Alison never woke up.
"It's tragic and it doesn't need to happen to anyone else," he said.
Raising awareness about food allergies
The Pickerings are now on a mission to raise awareness of the seriousness of food allergies.
"We would love to see more done to make wait staff and patrons aware," said Joy Pickering.
The Texas Legislature last year passed the Sergio Lopez Food Allergy Awareness Act to improve training and communication among restaurant kitchen workers.
The Pickerings are calling for clear, consistent communication at restaurants and comprehensive training for all restaurant staff. They're also interested in working with the Texas Restaurant Association.
"To determine what guidelines could be put in place to help restaurants have better communication to their customers as far as ingredients, much like labels on grocery store items you buy," Grover Pickering said.
It's a message they're certain will spare others from the loss they suffered.
"I know we're going to save lives by doing this," Joy Pickering said.