Eight hostel staff arrested over Laos poison deaths after workers ‘refused to call ambulance & massaged victim’s feet’
HOSTEL staff in Laos have been arrested over the fatal poisonings of six tourists thought to have been offered methanol-laced shots.
Eight employees at the Nana Backpacker hostel in Vang Vieng were taken into custody on Monday after workers reportedly refused to call an ambulance for dying guests.
Brit tourist Simone White, 28, and five others died just hours after drinking free booze in the party hub.
They are feared to have drunk shots contaminated with methanol before falling ill and dying.
The eight detained workers are reportedly believed to be Vietnamese nationals.
Two Danish friends Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and her friend Freja Vennervald, 21, died after they were left vomiting blood for 13 hours.
A witness who tried to help the girls reportedly told their grieving friend, who is gathering crucial testimonies in Vang Vieng, what happened before they died, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
The testimony claimed staff refused to call an ambulance and a female worker massaged the woman’s toes and feet instead, while one of the Danish girls was having a seizure.
The worker supposedly said the girl was just having a panic attack.
The manager and bartender at the hostel Duong Duc Toan was investigated last week by local police and detained after several tourists were hospitalised.
Guests at the hostel were reportedly handed free shots made with local Tiger Vodka, as a gesture of hospitality.
It is not clear where the allegedly methanol-spiked drinks were consumed – or exactly how many unwell tourists remain in hospital.
There have also been reports of possible poisoning victims from other venues in the area, which used Tiger Vodka.
Toan previously denied that any drinks served there could have made the holidaymakers ill.
Staff at the hostel also refused that Tiger Vodka was added to the free shots handed out during the venues happy hour.
Simone White, 28, a lawyer from Kent, died last Thursday.
The lawyer and her two friends reportedly had six shots each, watered down with Sprite, before the tragic incident.
Simone’s mother, Sue White, said the three friends were initially “dismissed” by medics who said they had food poisoning.
Sue added: “They had to wait an hour for the ambulance and by the time they got there, Simone was delirious and had trouble breathing.
“I think, basically, it had already affected her brain.”
Why is methanol so deadly?
METHANOL is a super-toxic version of alcohol that may be present in drinks if added by crooks to make them stronger or if they are brewed or distilled badly, writes The Sun's health correspondent Sam Blanchard.
The consequences can be devastating because as little as a single shot of contaminated booze could be deadly, with just 4ml of methanol potentially enough to cause blindness.
Prof Oliver Jones, a chemist at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, said: “The body converts methanol to formic acid.
“Formic acid blocks the action of an enzyme that is critical to how the body uses oxygen to generate energy.
“If it stops working, cells cannot take up or use oxygen from the blood and lack of oxygen causes problems in a range of organs as the cells start to die.
“Symptoms of methanol poisoning include vomiting, seizures and dizziness.
“The optic nerve seems to be particularly vulnerable to methanol toxicity, so there is the potential for temporary or permanent blindness, and even death.
“While thankfully rare, methanol poisoning is very serious, and treatment should be given at a hospital.”
An unexpected but key way of treating methanol poisoning is to get the patient drunk with normal alcohol – known as ethanol – to distract the liver and stop it processing the methanol.
Australian friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both 19, also died following the suspected mass methanol poisoning.
The teens, from Melbourne, also stayed at the Nana Backpacker hostel.
The alarm was raised by hostel staff after the teens failed to check out on the morning of November 13.
Bianca and Holly were evacuated and rushed to separate hospitals in Bangkok, Thailand, as their families travelled to be with them.
Bianca tragically died on Thursday and Holly died just a day later.
Holly’s dad Shaun told Nine News: “It is with broken hearts, and we are so sad to say that our beautiful girl Holly is now at peace.
“We find comfort and solace in knowing that Holly bought so much joy and happiness to so many people.”
American man James Louis Hutson, 57, also died.
The Laotian government has finally broken its silence on the tragedy and vowed to “bring the perpetrators to justice.”
They added: “The government of the Lao PDR reaffirms that it always attaches the importance and pays attention to the safety of both domestic and foreign tourists.”
It is not yet known how these drinks could have been spiked but some locals revealed how a factory error could have led to this disaster, The Sun previously reported.
Anonymous sources said Tiger Vodka, which sells for 36p per bottle, was made on a site owned by the Laotian communist government, according to the Sun Herald.
The source said: “Everything is owned by the government, or at least 90 per cent government owned.”
“This could have been a mistake made at a government owned factory, that is a possible reason as to why it happened.”
Some people have questioned why the already cheap drink could have been spiked with with something cheaper and more toxic like methanol.
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