Vigil held for 7-year-old Chesterfield girl

Seven-year-old Amarria Johnson was remembered as a little girl who liked to laugh and who had dreams of being a rock star during a tearful candlelight vigil Thursday night.

The Hopkins Elementary School first-grader died Monday after having an allergic reaction to something she ate. She was at school when she had the reaction.

"I feel blessed that all these people were able to come out to just support us and show their love for Amarria," said Laura Pendleton, Amarria's mother, at the vigil held in the front yard of her home on Manassas Drive in Chesterfield County.

Pink balloons decorated the mailbox and porch, and dozens of people, including family, friends and classmates, said a prayer, sang "Amazing Grace" and offered remembrances before ending with "Jesus Loves Me."

"It's a hurting thing," said Leroy Green, Amarria's grandfather, who asked those gathered to remember her name.

"We need to educate the schools. We need to educate the parents. This could happen again," Green added.

Pendleton said she would be able to say more about what happened next week. Services for her daughter are being planned for Saturday. Donations are being accepted at local branches of Wells Fargo bank.

At the vigil, family members talked about a little girl who sometimes said she was "itchy" and would ask for Benadryl when she felt a reaction coming on.

According to Chesterfield emergency officials, authorities received an emergency call from the school at 2:26 p.m. Monday. The child was in cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived and she was pronounced dead after being taken to CJW Medical Center (Chippenham), a Chesterfield Fire & EMS spokesman said.

School officials, citing federal health privacy rules, would not comment on whether there was an individualized emergency health plan for what to do if Amarria had a severe allergic reaction at school.

Such plans are prepared by the child's doctor and parents to provide schools with guidance. If the plan says to give the child oral medication such as Benadryl or epinephrine by injection, the parent has to provide the medications.

Of the 60,000 students in Chesterfield County Public Schools, just more than 600 have health plans on file that permit school officials to give them an epinephrine injection if they have an allergic reaction to food, bee stings or latex, a spokesman said. "We do have students who have EpiPens at schools," schools spokesman Shawn Smith said. "The only medication the school has is medication provided by the family as prescribed by their emergency health plan," he said.

He said if an emergency health plans is submitted and the medications or other resources it calls for are not provided by the family, a public health nurse follows up.

Advocacy groups are pushing to have EpiPens, which have to be prescribed by a doctor for a particular patient, become a standard part of school first aid kits.

The School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House.

"It wouldn't be prescribed to a particular child but to the school," said Maria L. Acebal, head of Fairfax-based Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network."My daughter has a food allergy," Acebal said. "Hers is prescribed to her. Say the school had a child in an emergency reaction. They could not use my child's on the other child. The legislation we are supporting would allow schools to have an epinephrine auto injector that could be in the first aid kit."

The fatality has local school officials reminding parents to make sure schools know about any medical issues their children have.

Richmond Public Schools spokeswoman Felicia Cosby said reminders are going out to parents.

"We are asking our parents to make sure to fill out an allergy medical statement for students … and we are asking them to get it back to us no later than (Jan. 17) just to make sure we have updated information," Cosby said.

They are also bringing in medical experts to do additional allergy education for administrators and staff, Cosby said.