On a winter night in June 2022, sixteen-year-old Jeremy Webb was camping with friends on the New South Wales Central Coast when he began vomiting and struggling to breathe after eating beef sausages.

Distressed and gasping, he ran from the campground to seek help from occupants of a nearby camper van, asking them to call an ambulance, and then collapsed.

Emergency responders arrived and his friends administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but Webb died at hospital just over an hour later.

What was first attributed to an acute asthma attack has now been definitively linked to anaphylaxis caused by a rare mammalian meat allergy, the NSW Deputy State Coroner found, marking the first documented fatal case of this condition in Australia.

The inquest concluded that the allergic reaction to mammalian meat after tick bites triggered an acute exacerbation of Webb’s asthma, leading to fatal respiratory collapse.

Webb had a long history of asthma and recurrent adverse reactions to red meat, which his family now understands stemmed from mammalian meat allergy arising after repeated tick bites during childhood.

Immunologists recognise the condition, also known as alpha-gal syndrome, as an allergy to a sugar molecule present in ticks and in most mammalian meat products.

After exposure to certain ticks, the body can produce antibodies to this molecule, leading to delayed allergic reactions several hours after consuming red meat or other mammalian-derived foods.

Evidence presented at the inquest highlighted that neither Webb nor his medical practitioners were aware that his allergy carried a life-threatening risk of anaphylaxis, even though he had previously required adrenaline for severe reactions.

Experts emphasised that asthma is a known risk factor for fatal outcomes from food allergy-induced anaphylaxis and that greater clinical awareness of alpha-gal syndrome is needed in tick-endemic regions.

Webb’s family has since advocated for improved public education on tick bite prevention, proper tick removal and the recognition of delayed allergic responses.

The coroner’s findings conclude that anaphylaxis due to mammalian meat allergy after tick bite was the primary cause of the acute asthma exacerbation that cost Jeremy Webb his life.