She accepted the marriage proposal, but dies days later from using the wrong spoon

craig mkinnon he had prepared everything for the trip to South Africa with his girlfriend Jess Prinsloo it was unforgettable. Most of his family lives in South Africa and there was no better place for him to propose. But a few days later, Craig returned to London with his girlfriend’s ashes.

As published by the media Mirrorit is believed that 24-year-old Jess, who had a acute allergy to dairy products he suffered a fatal reaction afterwards using the wrong spoon to stir the tea.

The couple were a week into their dream trip to South Africa when, on Dec. 27, Craig popped the question at the God’s Window observation deck in Mpumalanga: “Will you marry me?” It was the happiest day for him, when she heard from the other end: “Yes, I do” through tears. But the idyllic holiday in South Africa ended in a nightmare.

Craig is hollow and heartbreaking, recalling, “Most of her family lives in South Africa and she hadn’t been back for six years, so I knew there was no better place to propose. “My voice cracked as I knelt down and asked: ‘Do you want to marry me?‘ She was like, ‘Oh my God’ and she started crying before she said yes,” she reveals. Mirror.

But after celebrating the next few days with champagne and “lots of laughs,” they headed to Jess’ mother’s Johannesburg home on 30 December. It was here that Jess came into contact with dairy products.

In seconds, the worst happened: he began to suffer anaphylaxisa potentially fatal reaction causing his throat to close up, and he died in hospital the next day, on New Year’s Day.

As much as the story could be reconstructed, Jess – who worked as a marketing executive – always carried two EpiPens with him in case he suffered from anaphylaxis, but this time they failed. EpiPens are pens designed to automatically inject a dose of epinephrine on the person’s thigh to stop an allergic reaction.

Craig said, “When Jess died, part of me died too, but there’s no one to blame for her death. But, God, she’d had several accidents.

Craig and Jess met in college in 2019 and moved in together after the Covid-19 lockdown in 2021.

The day she got sick, Creig recalled that Jess’s brother woke her up and told her she was having a bad reaction. “She saw her sitting on the toilet seat, that she was really struggling to breathe. I had used an EpiPen, but she wasn’t having the effect that she normally does.”

Jess was taken to hospital where doctors fought to save her, but were unsuccessful.

Craig believes years of allergic reactions had a cumulative effect on Jess, which she had been allergic to dairy products since she was nine months old. She remembered Jess telling her how she needed to be revived after eating milk in a curry when she was 18.

He also recalled another episode he had with her, marking how difficult it was for Jess to live with that disease. “She asked for a vegan dessert that was supposed to be dairy free, had the allergic reaction and required antihistamines, an EpiPen and a trip to the hospital. I haven’t eaten dairy products for about three years because it wasn’t worth the risk.”

Following Jess’s death, Craig, of Salisbury, Wilts, had to pay medical costs of £3,700 plus £1,200 in legal costs.

Jess’s relatives have launched a page of GoFundMe to cover bills and pay for his funeral in South Africa on 6 January. Meanwhile, Craig knows that nothing he experiences from now on will be the same without Jess.