Annie Walton Doyle
Teen football players are under fire after they ‘deliberately put peanuts into an allergic teammate’s locker.’
Carter Mannon’s peanut allergy was diagnosed when he was just 9 months old.
But by exercising caution, he had been able to live a normal life, even making it onto the Varsity football team at Lake Travis High School, Texas.
However, according to Mannon’s mum, his teammates took advantage of their knowledge of his allergy, filling his locker with the peanuts that could kill him.
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Recalling the moment her son’s allergy became apparent, Shawna Mannon, tells People: “We had him sitting on the counter, and my husband was making a peanut butter sandwich right next to him. Carter reached his hand inside of the peanut butter jar and he ended up smearing it on himself.”
“He broke out in hives right away — it was a perfect handprint of hives. And that’s when we realized, ‘Oh, he must be allergic.’”
His allergy was extreme, and well-documented to his school.
In fact, he’d suffered during a prior incident when he accidentally ate a contaminated cookie, resulting in two doses of his EpiPen and a trip to hospital.
As per Mayo Clinic: “Anaphylaxis is a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction. In anaphylaxis, the immune system releases a flood of chemicals that can cause the body to go into shock. Blood pressure drops suddenly, and the airways narrow, blocking your breathing. The pulse may be fast and weak, and you may have a skin rash. You may also get nauseous and vomit. Anaphylaxis needs to be treated right away with an injection of epinephrine. If it isn’t treated right away, it can be deadly.”
But following this scare, Mannon has faced another dangerous incident – and this time, his mum says it was no accident.
She claims that Mannon’s teammates decided to play a potential deadly ‘prank’ on their highly allergic teammate.
Shawna explains: “They were kind of joking around about it and they said, ‘But could it kill you if it touched you?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, it absolutely could.’ If it got in his nose, eyes or mouth, that’s where it would go into anaphylactic shock. And so he told them, ‘Yes, it could absolutely kill me.’ ”
“Then, the next day before the game, they went in and they had put peanuts in his locker, on his jersey and in his cleats,” Shawna says. “It was a can of peanuts that they just kind of scattered throughout his locker and put in his cleats.”
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Mannon’s reaction was fast and extreme.
Shawna tells People: “When he grabbed his jersey, peanuts fell out everywhere. He realized there were some still left in his cleats. He looked at his arm, [and] he’s got hives already starting to develop.”
The incident was reported, and the boys involved were benched for two days, forced to switch locker rooms and do extra runs at practice.
However, Shawna confirms that Mannon faced backlash over this.
“The kid would flick him as he’s walking down the hall from behind. There was a lot of verbal retaliation… There was one point where someone in the locker room put a peanut butter granola bar in his backpack.”
Carter has since switched schools over the treatment.
But this behaviour was not classed as bullying.
A representative for the Lake Travis Independent School District tells People, “Under the Texas Education Code, bullying is a very specific behavior, and is defined as an act or pattern of acts that physically harms a student or materially and substantially disrupts the educational process. Upon concluding our investigation, it was determined that the legal elements of bullying were not met. ”
Shawna has made her feelings clear on this bizarre stance.
“When you ask somebody, ‘Could this kill you?’ and then you just do exactly what you just asked… This is not a prank or joke,” Shawna tells PEOPLE. “This could have killed him if it was if it was on a water bottle, if it was on his face mask, his helmet, these things would have gotten into his system and he would have been in anaphylactic shock.”
She concludes: “I need these boys to understand that this could have killed him.”
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