Fergus Dunn was only out with his friends for half an hour on Tuesday night, and was allowed to canvass one block in the suburb of Parkland with his mates.
Tash Dunn told NewstalkZB she dropped Fergus off at 6.30pm and remained in text contact with him until she picked him up from a friend’s house at 7pm.
When he got into the car, she was shocked to hear him say he had eaten treats offered by random boys in the street.
"It was the first time that I’ve actually let them go trick or treating," said Dunn, a mother-of-four.
"They were allowed to just walk around the block … then as soon as he hopped in the car, he said, ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it but some boys on electric scooters with ski masks on had lolly cake and offered me some’.
"I said ‘you didn’t eat it?’ and he was like ‘yeah I did’.
"I tried to not freak out and tell him that it was a really silly thing to do.
"I just said ‘oh no … did your friends eat it?’ and he said ‘no, it was just me’."
Fergus told his mother that as soon as he ate the cake his throat and mouth "started burning" and his lips "were tingling".
"He had anaphylaxis last year so he has an EpiPen, but we don’t know what the allergy was," Dunn explained.
"So he really panicked that it was the anaphylaxis again."
His friends walked him home and by the time Dunn picked him up, Fergus had stomach pains.
"He was just very, very quiet … he didn’t eat any Halloween candy at all … over the course of the evening, his stomach pain just got really intense and severe.
"I immediately thought, you know, something could have been in that lolly cake."
Dunn quizzed her son about the boys in ski masks but he could only say they were about 11 or 12.
From 11pm Fergus’ condition worsened and he began throwing up and running to the toilet.
"After probably an hour of that, he just fell asleep - he was so, so tired."
Dunn considered taking him to see an after-hours doctor - but they had closed at 10pm.
"Then I just sat awake all night while he slept," she said.
The next morning her teenage daughter messaged her to say she had heard from friends that "teenage boys put laxatives in lolly cake and were handing it out last night".
"It all kind of clicked into place - and this is what I’d suspected last the night before. I’d actually spoken to my mum about it and said maybe they could have put laxatives or something," Dunn said.
"I actually kind of thought it could have been something worse - if it could have been drugs."
Dunn spoke to Healthline and her son’s symptoms - including ongoing severe stomach pain and cramping - seemed to match with him being given laxatives.
They advised Dunn to contact the police, which she did. She will take her son to speak to an officer when he has recovered.
"The one time I finally let him go [trick-or-treating] and this happens," she said.
"I guess for Fergus, he’s done it, but it almost sounds as though he knew the second he’d done it [he thought] ‘I’ve done something silly here’," she said.
"I think he feels really disappointed in himself - that he should have thought about it.
"I think he was swept up in the whole moment of Halloween - he didn’t really think logically about any sort of repercussions.
"[The culprits] are thinking it’s just a laugh but [the other kids] actually could get really sick. It’s terrifying as a parent as well."
- Additional reporting NewstalkZB
