Simone White, 28, from Orpington, Kent, died in November last year after she fell ill from drinking free shots mixed with methanol whilst on a trip to the popular backpacking town of Vang Vieng
The devastated mum of a British lawyer who died in Laos after allegedly being served methanol-laced shots says she fears she may never find out who is responsible for her daughter’s death.
Simone White, 28, from Orpington, Kent, died in November last year after she fell ill from drinking the free shots mixed with the deadly chemical whilst on a trip to the popular backpacking town of Vang Vieng. Her mum, Sue White, and best friend Bethany say they’ve been left in the dark during an ongoing investigation by police in Laos – who are “not releasing any information”, the pair said.
They are now worried they will never find out who was responsible for Simone’s death. Ms White told ITV: “They’re not releasing any information, no statements or anything. I think it’s very unlikely any individual anyway, will be convicted of the crime ever.
“It’s unexplained as to why it affected Simone so much worse than (others)… we’ve got no answer to that at all. There’s been a post-mortem (examination), we’ve got no results of that. Whether it was her metabolism and she processed it more quickly or differently to the others? We don’t know, but we’ve got no answers at all.”
Bethany, who had joined Simone on the trip to Laos, said she watched the hostel bartender pour shots from a “typical vodka bottle” and then ordered Sprite to mix them with. The hostel owner previously denied their drinks were responsible for the poisoning.
Bethany said they ordered five or six shots each over the course of two-and-a-half hours and said the drinks did not taste as strong as she expected. The next day, the pair began to feel unwell. Bethany said she felt tired and was unable to “move the muscles that you want to move when you want to move them”.
When Simone began vomiting and Bethany fainted, their friend suggested they go to hospital. Bethany said that when they arrived, staff initially wrongly suspected either food poisoning or drugs. All three were given treatment, but by this time Simone’s condition was deteriorating, ITV News reports.
The friends decided to be transferred to a private hospital but by the time they arrived there, more than 24 hours after consuming the drinks, “it was just too late”, Bethany added. The next morning, Ms White woke up to a message from Bethany and she booked a flight to Laos.
But at 2am, the night before she was due to fly, Ms White received a phone call from Bethany and one of the hospital doctors, asking her to give permission for Simone to have brain surgery. Ms White said: “As soon as they said brain surgery I just knew she wasn’t going to make it. Like mother’s intuition… I just knew.”
Simone was taken to surgery, and on the Sunday evening after a CT scan Ms White was told Simone had 5% brain power and by Monday it had gone down to zero. She said: “We just told her how much she was loved and how much she’d be missed… hopefully she did hear something. I’m so grateful I was there by her bedside. But it was absolutely soul destroying. Obviously that picture is going to be in my mind forevermore.”
The mum was then told she would have to switch off Simone’s life support herself as the doctors could not do it for religious reasons. She said: “It was awful. I had my husband and my son on the end of the phone, but I was in the room on my own. I turned the machine off and then 30 seconds later the backup ventilator came into operation. It was just horrific.”
Ms White said that happened twice, and that doctors then asked her to remove the breathing tube from her daughter’s mouth. She said: “I think it probably took an hour for us to actually terminate the ventilator. Nothing will ever compare to that… what we all had to go through in that hospital. It was just devastating.”
A number of people were detained by Laos Police in connection with the deaths of Simone and five others, who are also believed to have been poisoned by methanol. Bethany has launched a petition for UK schools to educate children about the deadly chemical, while Ms White is calling for testing strips to be made widely available at an affordable cost for travellers, so they can test their drinks for methanol. She said: “She just loved life and… used to make the most of every minute.”