By Sheena Roszell

community

Community rallies together after passing of Clairmont boy

Jun 13, 2019 | 12:47 PM

Family and friends are grieving the loss of an eight-year-old boy after they say he was misdiagnosed with a smoke allergy and passed away over the weekend.

Close family friend Jessica Megan says Jaren Arbeau was having trouble breathing when his mom Lisanne took him for medical help.

“Jaren was misdiagnosed in the Grande Prairie hospital. They had taken him off oxygen and diagnosed him with smoke allergies, which resulted in Jaren’s lungs filling up with mucous and puss and that had caused them to shut down,” she said.

Megan says he saw a doctor Saturday and staff had him on oxygen and gave him steroids and puffers, but they were adamant that it was just smoke allergies from all the wildfires.

“He was a Type 1 diabetic and he’s never had any breathing issues ever before in his life, so it was just kind of new and Lisanne had taken him into the doctor and he was there for a few hours and no x-rays, or anything like that were taken,” explained Megan.

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On Sunday evening, the unthinkable happened. Jaren Arbeau and his mom were in the car when he started to struggle to breathe, so she pulled over between Sexsmith and Clairmont.

“She had stopped to do CPR and try and call 911 and nobody would stop, people were just driving by her, she was freaking out. Jaren had lost consciousness and she threw him back in the car and tried to speed him to the hospital, but he passed away on the way.”

Megan says they have launched a complaint and the hospital and the doctor who treated Jaren are under investigation to see if the proper steps were taken.

She believes this tragedy could have been prevented.

Everything GP reached out to the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons to see if it had launched an investigation. The College told us they are not able to share any information if a complaint has been submitted or status of any investigations currently underway.

We are still awaiting a response from Alberta Health Services.

There will be a small service for Jaren this evening at Denny’s at 6 p.m.. He and his mom are originally from Bear River, Nova Scotia and his body will be transported back there.

It will cost $10,000 to do that and fundraising efforts are underway for the family.

In less than 12 hours, they raised $18,000.

“The family is extremely thankful for Grande Prairie and Clairmont and, of course, everybody in the surrounding communities as well. Jaren has seemed to have touched thousands of people. There’s been over 500 people donate in just two days. The support is just phenomenal.”

“Lisanne wanted me to reach out and thank everybody for their support and she also wants to apologize for not reaching out to anybody at this time, she’s just really unable to speak to anyone right now.”

Jaren was Lisanne’s only child.