Doctor with ‘severe’ food allergies dies after dining at Disney Springs, lawsuit says
Within an hour of dining at a Disney Springs restaurant, a woman had a fatal allergic reaction from the food she ate and collapsed while shopping at one of the nearby stores in Florida, according to a new lawsuit.
Kanokporn Tangsuan, a New York-based doctor, and her husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, told a waiter she had a “severe allergy to dairy and nuts” before they placed an order at Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant on Oct. 5, the lawsuit says.
Despite multiple assurances that her food would be prepared without allergens, the restaurant served Tangsuan a meal that wasn’t allergen-free when the couple had dinner with Piccolo’s mother, according to a complaint filed Feb. 22 in Orange County.
After eating, Tangsuan and Jackie Piccolo, her mother-in-law, split up to go shopping at different stores in Disney Springs while Jeffrey Piccolo went back to their hotel room with leftovers, the complaint says.
Tangsuan “began having severe difficulty breathing and collapsed to the floor” at about 8:45 p.m. as she shopped at Planet Hollywood, another restaurant with a store, according to the complaint.
A person called 911 and told the dispatcher Tangsuan “emergently self-administered an epi-pen” before she was rushed to a hospital, the complaint says.
Jackie Piccolo’s subsequent phone call to Tangsuan went unanswered, so she met her son at their hotel, where she called Tangsuan again, according to the complaint.
However, another person answered Tangsuan’s phone and told Jackie Piccolo that Tangsuan was at the hospital, according to the complaint.
Jeffrey and Jackie Piccolo rushed to the hospital, where they were told Tangsuan died, the complaint says.
A medical examiner concluded Tangsuan died “as a result of anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system,” according to the complaint.
The manner of the 42-year-old’s death was ruled an accident, according to her autopsy report obtained by Florida Politics.
Jeffrey Piccolo, 35, wrote in an Oct. 9 Facebook post that his wife, who he referred to as Amy Tangsuan-Piccolo, died “unexpectedly and suddenly.”
“Ten minutes before she passed she was perfectly healthy and enjoying herself shopping and then minutes later she died,” he said in the post. “We are all heart broken over this loss of such a beautiful, loving, kind, and helpful person.”
Now, Jeffrey Piccolo is suing the Disney Springs restaurant and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, accusing them of negligence — resulting in his wife’s death.
McClatchy News contacted Disney and the restaurant for comment Feb. 26 and didn’t receive an immediate response.
With the lawsuit, Jeffrey Piccolo is seeking more than $50,000 in damages, including for mental pain and suffering, loss of companionship and protection, funeral expenses and more.
He and Tangsuan got married on Sept. 9, 2018, and lived together on Long Island, New York, according to Nicholas F. DeBellis, a paralegal investigator for Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart and Shipley, P.A., the law firm representing the lawsuit.
What did the woman eat at Disney?
In October, Tangsuan visited Orlando to attend a conference for work, DeBellis said.
Jeffrey and Jackie Piccolo accompanied her and “they turned the trip into a vacation,” he said.
Tangsuan was a doctor at NYU Langone in New York, according to the complaint.
While at Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant, Tangsuan ordered different items from the menu after getting the “waiter’s guarantee that these food items would be allergen free,” the complaint says.
Specifically, she ordered menu items titled “Sure I’m Frittered,” “Scallop Forest,” “This Shepherd Went Vegan” and onion rings, according to the complaint.
The “Sure I’m Frittered” is a broccoli and corn fritter dish “with a sweetcorn puree and fire roasted pepper relish,” according to the restaurant’s menu.
The “Scallop Forest” is served with sea scallops “in a golden batter served with a citrus lime dipping sauce & sweet chili jam,” the menu says.
As for “This Shepherd Went Vegan,” the dish consists of “faro barley, carrots, wild mushrooms, green onion, peas and rutabaga topped with olive oil mashed potato with a burnt onion gravy.”
The bottom of the restaurant’s online menu says “cross-contamination may occur and thus we CAN NOT GUARANTEE that any dish we prepare will be completely free of gluten/allergens.”
It’s unknown if Tangsuan and her husband received a menu with this warning while dining at the restaurant or whether they were made aware of it.
“Disney’s employees, waiters, waitresses, chefs, managers, workers, and/or cast-members failed to prepare Kanokporn Tangsuan’s food free of allergens as they said they would, as she and her husband requested multiple times…as a direct and proximate result of the negligence of Defendant, Disney, (she) died,” the complaint says.
“We are saddened by her passing and our deepest condolences are with her family,” Steve Ritea, the senior director of media relations for NYU Langone Health, told McClatchy News in a statement Feb. 26.
In a Nov. 7 Facebook post, Jeffrey Piccolo wrote about his wife, saying “I miss you so much. Meeting you changed my life.”
“I miss your smile, your laugh, dancing around the kitchen with you, exploring and travelling the world with you,” Jeffrey Piccolo’s post reads. “ I miss everything about you baby. The world is such a darker place without you in it and without you in my life so is every day I wake up.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2024 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Doctor with ‘severe’ food allergies dies after dining at Disney Springs, lawsuit says."
.jpg)