NEED TO KNOW
- Lily King died in Morocco in June 2024 while visiting with her mother, who was born there
- According to a coroner’s report, Lily’s fatal allergic reaction was “avoidable”
- Her parents, Aicha and Michael, say they hope that by bringing attention to the circumstances surrounding her death, they can build allergy awareness
Like many college students, 18-year-old Lily King was elated after learning that she had passed her first year at Exeter University, in England, in June 2024.
She and her mom, Aicha, 57, were on a weeklong trip to Morocco when she got the news, Aicha tells PEOPLE.
To celebrate on their final night, Lily suggested they go back to the same restaurant they had visited for her 17th birthday, in the capital city of Rabat.
Aicha wasn’t easily convinced: What might have seemed like a routine outing for most people posed a greater risk for Lily, who was allergic to dairy, nuts, fish, sesame and most seafood.
Every time they traveled together, Aicha says, she would bring food that she knew was safe for her daughter to eat and she would make sure Lily had packed her EpiPen and antihistamine pills in case she had an allergic reaction.
Lily assured her mom that she would be cautious, so Aicha agreed to go.
At the restaurant, however, Lily consumed something that either contained an allergen or that had cross-contamination such as from the cooking oil, prompting a reaction — and then, days later, Lily’s death on June 23, 2024, according to her parents, Aicha and Michael King.
Since then, the family has become increasingly vocal, hoping to warn others in similar situations, they say.
A coroner’s report reviewed by PEOPLE states that Lily died from cardiorespiratory arrest caused by anaphylaxis “after eating a contaminated meal.”
Lily’s death was “avoidable,” wrote Dr. Sean Cummings, a Milton Keynes coroner in the U.K.
“Our hope is to spread the word that going anywhere on holiday with your children, if they have a serious allergy, is a danger,” Michael, 74, tells PEOPLE in his and his wife’s first interview with an American news outlet.
He believes his daughter was put in peril by restaurant staff who did not understand the risks of severe food allergies.
Representatives of the restaurant, Maya Restaurant and Lounge, could not be reached for comment. The eatery also declined to respond to a message from PEOPLE sent online.
Michael, who lives with his wife in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, says he had tried to warn Lily — but she was 18 and wanted to live her life. Still, he says, she was very careful.
“She had allergic reactions throughout her young life, but they weren’t serious, none of them required an EpiPen,” Michael says.
In most of those instances, according to her family, Lily took an antihistamine that was able to stop any further reaction. Only rarely were the symptoms more serious.
During her first year of college, at a music festival near her university, she ate a hamburger — which was not uncommon for her and had not been a problem. That time, however, she had her first anaphylactic shock because of an ingredient she wasn’t aware of.
“She was very lucky, because there was an ambulance service there at the festival, and she was taken there very quickly,” Michael says. “They administered her EpiPen and gave her more adrenaline.” (She did, however, pass out in the ambulance, her dad says.)
Lily’s experience was far different in Morocco: Aicha, who was born in Morocco, visited her native country with her daughter at least once a year. Sometimes Michael would join them.
“She thought she was safe because her mum was with her, and her mum speaks the language already,” Michael says.
As soon as Lily and Aicha got to the restaurant on the night of June 19, 2024, Aicha, who speaks fluent Arabic, says she alerted their server three times to Lily’s allergies and also told other staff.
“‘Be careful, my daughter, she’s allergic to this and this and this,” Aicha says she told their waiter before ordering grilled chicken and chips.
She says the man serving them told her not to worry and assured her that he was taking the matter seriously.
“And Lily, she told him, in Arabic, ‘I’m not going to be killed,’ ” Aicha says.
Aicha says she was served a small basket with chips, chicken, mixed vegetables and pepper sauce.
She says Lily tasted what she believed was a carrot. In the dimly lit restaurant, Aicha thought the carrots were prawns and worried that the pepper sauce contained dairy, which Lily was allergic to — concerns she says she relayed in Arabic to her server.
She says he again assured her that they were in fact carrots cooked in olive oil.
But within minutes of biting the carrot, Lily began to have a reaction.
“She said to me, ‘Mom, my tongue is itchy,’ ” Aicha says. That always happened before Lily had an allergic reaction. “I said to her, ‘Get up, we’re going to hospital.’ “
Lily took an antihistamine and told her mother she was fine, Aicha says, but Aicha insisted they leave.
The teen went to the restroom and then headed outside for some fresh air, where her mother watched fearfully as her condition rapidly worsened. Aicha says she then called an ambulance.
Lily took her EpiPen, gave herself a second injection and shared a wrenching exchange with her mother.
Even now, Aicha begins to cry as she recalls how Lily told her, “Mom, I’m sorry. I love you. I love you, Mom. But goodbye.”
Soon, she fell unconscious.
Aicha says treatment was delayed because the ambulance didn’t arrive and the restaurant demanded she settle her bill before leaving.
She was eventually able to get Lily to the hospital in her nephew’s car. By this time, Michael says, Lily was “totally unresponsive.” She’d had a catatonic seizure, Aicha says.
Subsequent scans showed she had no brain activity. When Michael arrived in Morocco, a doctor told him Lily’s prognosis was poor. She was eventually taken off the support therapies keeping her alive, but she continued to receive oxygen.
Her mom and dad sat with her as her heartbeat gradually became weaker. Then she died.
Lily, who was studying economics, was the couple’s only daughter; Aicha had three previous miscarriages. (Michael had three kids in a previous marriage.)
They say they don’t want more parents to suffer the way they are.
“We really just want to help other people to make informed decisions about what they do about food intake when they’re in countries where they don’t speak the language,” Michael says, “or where regulations aren’t applied that are as strict as they may be in their own country.”
