Every year one to three people die in Sweden due to anaphylactic shock – a severe allergic reaction, as a result of a wasp sting. And that’s exactly what happened in August 2018, when Jessica Bohm Lindelöf’s husband, Peter, died suddenly, leaving his wife and their three sons with incredible grief.
For Jessica, it was the children who gave her the strength to go on.
– I decided then and there that this will work, it will just work. There is no alternative. It is a primal force when you have children and watch them, she says in Nyhetsmorgon.
Jessica Bohm Lindelöf’s husband Peter Lindelöf was on Öland together with the couple’s youngest son Axel, aged ten, when he suddenly collapsed on the ground. Peter himself thought it was due to lack of fluids, but it turned out that his heart had stopped, says Jessica Bohm Lindelöf, in Nyhetsmorgon.
– He is taken to hospital and it is established that he has a wasp sting on his foot. The sting led to an anaphylactic shock and his heart stopped, he lost blood pressure and suffered organ failure, she says.
Could not be saved
Peter, who previously had a nut and legume allergy, had brought the cortisone preparation betapred with him, but the reaction came so quickly that there was nothing to do to save him, Jessica explains.
– It’s about seconds, everything was done that could be done, she says. It was thought he had suffered a brain haemorrhage.
At the hospital in Linköping, Peter died just a few hours after he arrived there in an ambulance. Jessica, who was now left alone with the great sadness of her husband, found the strength to move on in her three sons who were then 10, 16 and 18 years old.
– There is some primal power when you have children and look at them and think that they should live. They had their whole lives ahead of them, she says.
Passionate about the children
But Jessica did not feel that she and her sons received the support they needed after her husband’s death. Now she commits herself to other children who are involved in the same thing.
– I am very passionate about the care of these children, who are hit so hard, she says.
Peter, not yet 46 years old, was a healthy and active man with a strong heart, and Jessica was asked to donate his organs – something she instinctively initially said no to. But after a conversation with their 18-year-old son, they chose to donate Peter’s heart, lung and kidneys.
– It is fantastic! It’s so big that you can’t even think about it, she says.