We arrived around 1 p.m. and Paige was so excited to visit Hawaii for the first time. "This has devastated and shocked my family in the deepest way imaginable, but we are reminded of the beautiful and giving hearts of our friends, both close to us and friends who we have never met,” she wrote. But about 10 to 15 minutes after swimming in a pool along with her younger sister Violet and a friend, Paige left the water to complain that her nose was burning. I knew something was not right so I asked our host to call 9-1-1. She looked into my eyes and screamed, and said, "Mom, I'm dying. It took 20+ minutes of CPR before they got Paige's heart started again, and were able to put in the breathing tube. Paige was on life support, and in a coma because of the trauma that her body suffered.
– On Thanksgiving Day, Paige Warner and her family flew to Honolulu for the 11-year-old's first trip to Hawaii. She "was so excited," recounts mom Karin Carpenter, who explains that after a holiday dinner of white rice and soy sauce—Paige had "extensive" food allergies—her daughter got into the pool with her sister. Fewer than 15 minutes later, she was out of the pool, complaining of a stinging nose. Her condition quickly snowballed into something much more serious, involving difficulty breathing, and she was taken to the ER. On Dec. 4, after a week in a coma, the girl from Roseville, Calif., was taken off life support; it's still unclear what triggered the reaction, reports KTLA. As Carpenter writes on a GoFundMe page, she speculates about possible contributing factors: the plane, entering an environment full of allergens that were new to her, the area's large feral cat population, pesticide runoff in the pool from an adjacent golf course, or a bronchial spasm caused by the pool's temperature. The family is "devastated," but sister Violet is bringing healing, insisting that the family hang its Christmas decorations because Paige "loves Christmas." The GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $30,000 to date. The most heart-tugging line on the page, from Carpenter's description of the events immediately after Paige got out of the pool: "She looked into my eyes and screamed, and said, 'Mom, I'm dying. I know I am because I can see it in your eyes.'" (A teen's allergic reaction recently caused her to "burn from the inside out.")