The mother of a diabetic teenager who died after becoming seriously ill on an overseas school trip three years ago has told a coroner's court her son should never have died and she wants to make sure no other family experiences the same loss.On a school trip in Vietnam he became ill and began to vomit lots, pushing his blood glucose levels upLachlan Cook was just 16 years old when he suffered a cardiac arrest in Vietnam in 2019. He never recovered and died back home in Australia.
Staff began to check his blood glucose levels every half an hour. The court heard they dropped to 17 and he was given some medication to help with the nausea. He then began to slur his speech. They checked his levels and found they were dangerously high at 27.Back in Australia, Ms McMahon received a call from World Challenge staff to say they had taken Lachlan to hospital, that "he had had a cardiac arrest, was in a coma and very unwell".
I’ve had experience with this very issue and parents of chronically diseased children being actively discouraged from attending excursions in the name of letting them grow up. I don’t understand why schools don’t insist on their presence rather than rejecting it. Overconfidence.
Heartbreaking.