Empowering Future Chefs with Lifesaving Skills Through EpiPen Training
Ever since her son Dillon died from a severe allergic reaction, Angel Mueller of Mishicot has been on a mission. For the past ten years, she has been traveling the state and teaching others how to correctly use what is commonly known as an EpiPen to help people having an allergic crisis.
Earlier this month, Angel and her husband George brought this life-saving mission to Fox Valley Technical College. Students in the Culinary Arts program were taught how to recognize the signs and stages of a severe allergic reaction, and how to correctly use an epinephrine auto-injector. The pen-like instrument injects medication that can decrease a person’s allergic reaction by relaxing muscles in the airway, making it easier to breathe.
Culinary students are on the front lines of food-related allergies, making this training critical.
“I think it’s super important, especially in my profession with culinary, for people to be able to save people’s lives,” says student Ian Jones. “You never know whenever anything can go wrong; especially with food-related allergic reactions, anything can happen.”
Dillon was 18 years old when he died from a severe allergic reaction to a bee sting. In 2017, three years after Dillon’s death, a law was passed in Wisconsin in his honor, known as Dillon’s Law.
This improved access to epinephrine auto-injectors and allowed trained individuals to carry and administer them to those in need.
Angel’s goal is to ensure that no one dies from an allergic reaction, “We turned that grief into power, energy, and motivation to go out and make a difference,” Angel says. “No one, ever, should die of an allergic reaction. Ever.”
Spectrum News 1 came to campus to cover the training effort. Read and watch the full story here:
In the news:
Spectrum News1: Parents train FVTC students how to use EpiPens
