A major, transnational investigation is underway to determine how six people fell ill and died after downing free tainted shots at a hostel in Vang Vieng, Laos, earlier this month
A Laos tourist “went from confused to comatose” in just 30 minutes after she ingested what is believed to have been methanol-laced alcohol in a mass-poisoning incident, a doctor who treated one of the victims has said.
Dr Yaher, who works at the district hospital in Vang Vieng, the tourist town where guests staying at the Nana Backpacker Hostel fell ill on November 13 after drinking tainted alcohol, said he was the first to treat Holly Bowles. Holly and Bianca Jones, both 19 and from Australia, were the first tourists to be hospitalised after they reportedly drank tainted shots of alcohol offered at the hostel.
They were treated at a Thai hospital before their deaths, with Holly having been taken to Dr Yaher’s emergency room – just 450 metres away from the hostel – nine days beforehand. He said the teenager had arrived in a state of confusion, and was comatose just half an hour later.
Speaking to The Times from the hospital where he works, the doctor said she was “confused and sleepy”, adding that she “didn’t know what had happened”. He said: “She was confused and she was sleepy. We asked her what she had eaten or drunk, but she didn’t know what had happened.”
The doctor initially thought she might have taken one too many cannabis-infused gummies he said are popular with backpackers that frequent his tourist-laden town. He treated Holly “symptomatically” by feeding her vitamins via an IV drip, but her condition rapidly deteriorated within 30 minutes.
Half an hour after she was placed on the drip, Dr Yaher said she “had a seizure and went into a coma”. The rapid change left the medic “so surprised”, he said, and his team gave her CPR as she “had difficulty breathing” and intubated her. She was also quickly referred to the hospital in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
She was rushed via ambulance to Kasemrad International Hospital and later to Setthathirath Hospital in the capital before she was transferred to the Thai hospital where she died on November 22, nine days after she drank the tainted alcohol, and one day after Bianca Jones. Four others who were staying at the hotel have also since been confirmed to have died.
They have been named as Danish nationals Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21, and American James Louis Hutson, 57. Simone White, a 28-year-old British lawyer, also died. The two Danish women were found unconscious in their room on November 13, while Mr Huston was found dead by staff after they noticed that he hadn’t left his accommodation. A transnational police investigation is now underway to determine how many others fell ill after consuming alcohol at the hostel.
