(From Agency reports)
18 June - Rising British athletics star Ross Baillie died in hospital this morning after
suffering a seizure triggered by a nut allergy.
Baillie, 21, a finalist in the 110 metre hurdles at last year’s Commonwealth Games
for Scotland, suffered the reaction after eating a chicken sandwich during a break in
training in Bath on Wednesday. Baillie was taken to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said: "Ross Baillie tragically died in the intensive
care unit at 11am today. His family were at his bedside."
Baillie had been doing some weight training earlier this week with double world
short-course swimming champion Mark Foster.
"After training we were going to play some golf in the afternoon," Foster, who
is also based at the University of Bath, said on Thursday. "We went to the sandwich
shop and they made us something with coronation chicken."
Ross knew as soon as he tasted it that it had some nut in it. He knew he had a nut
allergy. He tried to cough up the nut, he tried to make himself sick but in the end I had
to drive him to the hospital."
Sprint hurdles world record-holder Colin Jackson once dubbed the 21-year-old Scot "my
most likely successor." He was encouraged by Jackson to move to the University of
Bath in the west of England to join the elite athletics training group led by the former
world champion and his coach Malcolm Arnold.
There are fatalities caused by anaphylaxis, the allergy to peanuts, every year. About one
person in 200 suffers from the condition.