A teenager collapsed and died 20 minutes after dyeing her hair, according to her friend.
Tabatha McCourt, 17, enjoyed a quiet evening at her best friend’s house watching the live show “X Factor”. Airdrie, Lanarkshirewhen the tragedy happened.
According to friend Heather Goodhall20 minutes after applying the dye, she began pulling the foils out of her hair in pain and vomiting before collapsing.
Speaking to the Scottish Daily Record about the ordeal, Miss Goodhall said: “She started screaming, ‘No, no’ and my mother’s boyfriend held her and tried to calm her down.
“It was really scary. Her eyes started getting all weird and then she just felt sick. It was really frightening.
“She looked like a rag doll – limp, just lying there. We called the ambulance and when they arrived they told us to get out of the living room so I couldn’t see what was happening. Next thing you know, she was taken out of the house and into the ambulance.”
She was taken to Monklands General Hospital where she sadly died.
Speaking to Yahoo! News today, a Strathclyde Police spokeswoman confirmed the incident but said the cause of death had not yet been determined.
However, an autopsy will examine the possibility of whether she suffered a rare allergic reaction to a chemical component of the dye.
Tabatha’s grandfather John Bell, 59, said she had no health problems and it could not be ruled out that hair color played a role in her death.
He added: “We still don’t know what happened to our beautiful girl.”
In 2001, an inquest found that Narinder Devi, from Birmingham, died of an allergic reaction to hair dye. Pathologists said Devi suffered severe anaphylactic shock, “most likely” caused by the hair dye.
