9-Year-Old Girl Dies After Having 'One Lick' Of Ice Cream During Family Holiday

A 9-year-old girl died of severe allergic reaction after having "one lick" of ice cream during a family holiday, an inquest heard Monday.

The girl, identified as Habiba Chisti, was allergic to eggs and nuts. She was on a holiday with her parents and siblings in Spain when the incident took place.

Her father, Wajid Azam Chishti, told the court that he brought the girl an ice cream just hours after arriving at the destination on Feb. 16, 2019. Before buying the ice cream, the father checked with the vendor three times if it contained nuts and he was assured that it didn't.

The girl collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where she died two days later. An autopsy revealed the girl had died from a severe allergic reaction caused by the ingredients in the chocolate sauce.

"Habiba took one lick and she was absolutely fine at the time - but that's all it took. When we got back from the ice cream vendor she was okay. But when we got to the restaurant she started to feel unwell," her father told the court, the Scottish Sun reported.

"There weren't classical signs of anaphylaxis. I went to the reception to see if we could get some help but I didn't know it was a serious issue. By the time I got back to see her, my wife said she'd collapsed," he added.

He added that the hotel staff did not help him perform CPR on the girl.

"We called the ambulance, I did CPR myself. The ambulance seemed to take forever, but it was 11 minutes. But it felt like it was a long time. I continued doing mouth to mouth but none of the actual medical staff in the resort came forward. We were already anxious and we just wanted to know what was going on," he recalled.

Meanwhile, Prof. Marta Cohen, a consultant pediatric pathologist, explained how "one lick is enough" for an allergy to be deadly.

"The ice cream which potentially contained one or more allergen, are all in keeping with the developments of anaphylactic shock. On the balance of probability her cause of death was from anaphylactic shock. One lick is enough - if someone is really allergic, it can even just be from it being in the environment. This is why peanuts are not allowed on planes," Cohen told the court.