Photo: @orla_baxendale/Instagram
Professional dancer Órla Baxendale, who died at the age of 25 after eating a mislabeled holiday cookie, is reported to have suffered an allergic reaction so intense that her EpiPen was ineffective, an attorney representing her family said in a statement obtained by the New York Post on Thursday (January 25).
“Orla was very careful and hyper-vigilant about everything she ate, and always thoroughly checked the ingredients on all packaging. In addition, she always carried an EpiPen with her and surrounded herself with people who know how to administer one,” said Marijo C. Adimey of the Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf law firm. “In fact, when this tragic and preventable incident occurred and after she began to have an anaphylactic reaction, an EpiPen was used but due to the severity of her allergy, it was not effective."
Baxendale's family is suing the popular northeastern grocery chain Stew Leonard's, who claims it wasn't informed by the cookie manufacturer, Cookies United, that the Vanilla Florentine cookie consumed by Baxendale included peanuts after a recent recipe change.
“In what could only be described as deplorable conduct, Stew Leonard chose to post a video statement with his family alongside him attempting yet again to circumvent blame by stating that his Chief Products Officer was unaware of the change in ingredients,” Adimey said via the New York Post.
“Instead of standing up and taking full responsibility as the public would have expected them to, as the family of Orla would have expected him to, Stew Leonard’s is engaging in a public relations media campaign and promoting their own self-interests,” she added.
Baxendale, a United Kingdom native, died on January 11 after going into anaphylactic shock. An investigation into the dancer's death revealed “gross negligence and reckless conduct of the manufacturer and/or sellers” for not stating that the cookies' contained peanuts on their packaging, according to her attorney's, who added, "this failure in proper disclosure has led to this devastating yet preventable outcome."
Stew Leonard Jr. issued a video alongside his family in which he claimed that Cookies United didn't acknowledge the change in vanilla Florentine Cookies ingredients.
“I’m here with our family and, I mean we’re just all devastated, very sad. I have four daughters, one of them is in her 20s. I can imagine how that family feels right now,” Leonard said via News 12.
Cookies United, however, claimed it did share the change with the popular regional grocery chain in the months leading up to Baxendale's death.
“Stew Leonard’s claimed in an earlier press release that ‘the cookies contain peanuts, which was an ingredient not disclosed to Stew Leonard’s by the manufacturer,’” United Cookies wrote in a statement Tuesday (January 23). “Unfortunately, considering the tragedy of these circumstances, we need to point out that Stew Leonard’s was notified by Cookies United in July of 2023 that this product now contains peanuts, and all products shipped to them have been labeled accordingly.”
Baxendale moved to New York City in 2018 to train as a scholarship student at the Ailey School, according to a biography shared on the school's website, and had performed during New York Fashion Week, as well as having been involved in productions at Lincoln Center, according to the New York Post.