REGARDLESS of your race, creed, age, and status, provided you are a female, you would have used hair extensions at one time or the other.

Hair extension is the best thing to ever happen to fashion and beauty. Look around you and chances are, out of 10 women, nine have hair extensions installed in their hair. Women's desire to be glamorous is not vanity but rather the need to look and feel good.  Many have used hair extensions without any hitch but others have not been so lucky, like 34-year-old Atasha Graham.

On May 15th 2011, Jamaican-born Atasha Graham who had used  extensions for 14 years, collapsed in her door way  after a night of clubbing, due to a massive allergic reaction that could have been caused by the glue in her hair extensions.  She had been dancing at a club where her boyfriend of two years, Fenton Johnson, was the DJ.  Speaking about the incident, Mr. Johnson said, Miss Graham was fine until she stepped through the doorway of their home in Lee, South London at 6:30 and suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing. He called an ambulance  and tried resuscitating her while emergency  services gave him first Aid  instructions over the phone but she never fully regained consciousness and later died in the hospital

During an inquest into her death on Thursday February 2nd 2012, UK Home Office pathologist, Michael Heath said that, the latex glue used to apply her extensions or the solvent for removing the old ones , may have been the cause of her death, saying “I've seen cases where people using solvent to apply extensions suffered anaphylactic shock. There are about ten to twenty deaths a year in this country, many more in America. I have seen four in the last three months. The Doctor also told the hearing that; “ the hair extensions in Ms. Graham's hair were of latex type. This may or may not be related to her death. If it is the hair extension, normally a reaction would occur within half an hour of applying them” He added that traces of glue or solvent could have seeped into her bloodstream hours later after she started perspiring on the dance floor.

Food allergy, alcohol and drugs were ruled out as causes of her death.  Ms. Graham had drank Hennessy, brandy and red bull during her night out and only a moderate amount of alcohol was found in her body which could not have caused her death. No drug or substance was found either and Ms. Graham did not have any history of food allergies.

After vigorous examination of  Ms. Graham hair extension, which was attached to her natural hair with latex glue and consulting with experts, Dr. Heath concluded that, he was certain the cause of death was anaphylactic shock as the level of tryptase, which occurs naturally in the body during an allergic reaction, was 178 micrograms per liter of blood; 25 times higher than the normal amount of between two and four micrograms per liter. Though he is sure of the cause of death, he cannot determine the trigger  “the diagnosis is correct, but I am not sure what triggered it.” He added, 'if she had recovered, we could have carried out tests, but the situation we have, tragically, we cannot take it any further.

The Coroner Christopher Williams also concurred with Dr. Heath; he  recorded a verdict of death by natural causes and  also  said it was not possible to identify conclusively  what triggered the shock. “ she had an allergic reaction to something as the level of tryptase in her body was 178 micrograms, but we are not able to identify what the specific agent was that  caused this reaction”