Our son died from an allergic reaction – schools need to teach teenagers to recognise the signs and know how to respond
Ben McKenzie is an emergency doctor and a dad. An unthinkable tragedy shattered his family and now he’s taking a vital message into schools in the hope of saving lives.
A Melbourne family who lost their son to an allergic reaction are urging teenagers to learn how to recognise and respond to anaphylaxis in a bid to protect other children.
Max McKenzie, an energetic and kind 15-year-old, died from an allergic reaction in 2021 after he accidentally ate food containing nuts.
His devoted parents Tamara and Ben McKenzie have fought to share his story and keep his memory alive ever since.
Dr McKenzie, an experienced emergency physician, said they wanted this work to include the people adolescents spend most of their time with – fellow teenagers.
“In primary school the kids are protected by their parents and teachers,” he said.
“The people who die from food anaphylaxis are all either teenagers or young adults.”
In a bid to change this, they run Live to the Max, which offer high schools free resources and encourages them to host an awareness day in August to start a conversation about allergies.
They visited Camberwell Grammar, Max’s old school, last week for the initiative, and hope more schools will sign up in the coming years.
Mrs McKenzie said they wanted to fill the “gap in educating teenagers around anaphylaxis and allergy awareness” that isn’t just aimed at the kids with an allergy.
“[It’s] aimed at everyone, their friends and the people around who can support them through it and know what to do and know how to help them both in avoiding the food and treating it if anything goes wrong.”
Dr McKenzie said part of this was reassuring young people that – even if they’re unsure – it’s okay to administer an EpiPen.
“When I give talks, I say I could give everyone in this audience an EpiPen and everyone would be fine,” he said. “Nothing is going to go wrong, things go wrong when you don’t use them.”
He said it’s time to use an EpiPen and call triple-zero the moment anyone having an allergic reaction experiences breathing-related symptoms, including coughing, wheezing or dizziness.
“That includes asthma-type symptoms that come out of the blue,” he said.
“If someone is finding it hard to breathe because they’re having an allergic reaction, that is absolutely action stages, use the EpiPen, call triple-zero.”
Mrs McKenzie said the initiative’s name, Live to the Max, reflected both its goal and how their son lived his life.
“We want Max to be remembered through this initiative as someone who embraced life and loved life,” she said.
“We want to get to a place where people with food allergies, teenagers feel like they can live like that and don’t have to be weighed down by their food allergy.”
Dr McKenzie said their loss was “such a difficult thing to live with” and they want to spare other families.
“It’s still painful, even though it’s been four years,” he said.
“We don’t think it should happen to anyone else.”
LEARN MORE: www.livetothemax.com.au
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Originally published as Our son died from an allergic reaction – schools need to teach teenagers to recognise the signs and know how to respond
