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The parents of a 19-year-old Colorado State University sophomore from Hawaii who died last month hope the coroner’s findings will alert other asthma sufferers to the dangers of overusing inhalers.
The Larimer County, Colo., coroner found on Monday that Sascha Franzel, a 2009 Mid-Pacific Institute graduate, died Sept. 10 of an asthma attack and overuse of an asthma inhaler.
"The coroner told us there was no alcohol in her blood," said her mother, Sonia Franzel, who spoke Sunday to the coroner, noting the findings reveal that what people had reported about her daughter drinking alcohol at a party was wrong.
The coroner reported a high level of intoxication by albuterol, the active ingredient in the inhaler. Albuterol is a quick-relief medication that is used to open up the airways to make it easier to breathe.
Sonia Franzel said Monday that she wants to tell asthma sufferers, "Stop and think before using inhalers. It’s a call for action for people who use inhalers, thinking they’re safe. There is a limit."
Friends said they saw Sascha Franzel using her inhaler while at a party she was attending that Saturday evening, but that was not unusual. She left early because she was not feeling well, and a roommate found her in her dorm room.
Franzel was allergic to animals, particularly horse and dog dander, and perhaps had come in contact with someone at the party who had been around animals, her mother said, adding Fort Collins, Colo., has a large veterinary school.
In November she had a severe asthma attack after staying at the home of people who kept horses and dogs, and had to go to the hospital, Sonia Franzel said.
The Franzels said they had warned their daughter to use her inhaler only twice a day at most, and to go to the hospital if she needed it more.
She speculates her daughter’s asthma attack was so sudden and so severe she did not have time to call 911.
"I talked to her two hours before the party," Franzel said. "She was so excited she was going to a birthday party."
She later got a call from the emergency room.
"I said, ‘Can I talk to her?’ and the nurse said nothing," she said. "Then I said, ‘Is she alive?’ She said, ‘No, she’s not alive.’"
"She went home from the party, sat at her desk and died," Franzel said. "When her roommates came home, they tried to do CPR, but it was too late."
The Franzels’ only child would have celebrated her 20th birthday on Sept. 27. They were a close-knit family and would speak by phone at least four times a day.
"She would call us every day at 4:30 in the morning before she went to school," she said. "I still wake up at 4:30 a.m. thinking that she’ll call me."
The family has received an outpouring of support from more than 1,000 friends, professors and even parents of friends.
"She was a very compassionate, caring person. Her value of helping people was so much more than we could ever have imagined."
Parents of friends have called to say, "My kid would have committed suicide if it hadn’t been for Sascha. My kid would have left school if it hadn’t been for Sascha," Franzel said.
At Mid-Pac the principal described her as "self-possessed, compassionate and outgoing." Her goal was to become a doctor. She had organized an aloha shirt drive for troops in Afghanistan, resulting in more than 1,000 shirts being donated.
At CSU, Sascha Franzel majored in biology.
David and Sonia Franzel will go to Colorado for a Jewish graveside ceremony Oct. 11, which marks the 30th day after her death. She is buried at Rosehill Jewish Cemetery in Commerce City, Colo.
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