St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Tyler O'Neill was a late scratch on Tuesday after a food-related allergic reaction rendered him unable to play against the San Francisco Giants. He has since returned, entering Wednesday's game as a pinch-hitter, so you may have downplayed the severity of his reaction. If that's the case, then the little bit of news that came out on Friday afternoon might surprise you.
According to Cardinals beat writer Jeff Jones, O'Neill has a "severe peanut allergy" which was triggered after he ate an incorrectly labeled salad during the team's road trip in San Francisco. Though he did not have to go to the hospital, he needed to use his EpiPen — an auto-injectable device that delivers a large dose of epinephrine and can be a life-saving device during severe reactions — and he went so far as to call it "one of the worst moments" he had experienced in his life. He would have gone to a hospital in all likelihood, as one fan suggested, but Jones noted that there was an on-site medical clinic at the stadium that functioned well enough as a hospital room.
What were the symptoms? "Hives, swelling [and] labored breathing," relayed Jones, who also mentioned that O'Neill was unable to eat until after the third game of the series. Though O'Neill is usually able to purge after he ingests something to which he's allergic and the symptoms will usually dissipate at that point, this was not the case on Tuesday.
Similarly, former Orioles pitcher Brian Matusz landed in the emergency room back in 2014 after accidentally eating food that was cooked in peanut oil while out to eat, though he too was able to recover in a matter of days and take the field once again without too long a delay. And then, going from the baseball diamond to the basketball court, there was the case of Zhaire Smith, who nearly died from a very serious allergic reaction his rookie year.
In any event, O'Neill seems to have recovered after the scary experience, and it's a great thing that he had his EpiPen — or someone else did — at the ready.
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