Taking advantage of cheap alcohol while traveling abroad can be an easy source of good times while enjoying some time off, but for teens like Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones, it proved to be a deadly poison.
This is because, in many countries around the world, inexpensive booze or homemade moonshine can be adulterated with methanol as an easy way to maximise profits - but this shady business practice can have lethal consequences.
Holly's parents warned others against visiting Laos in a recent interview with Australia's 60 Minutes, saying that travelers should 'remove this country from their bucket list,' as they felt 'your life is worth nothing' to people spiking drinks for profit.
Spotting the symptoms of methanol poisoning is not always easy and is made more difficult by the circumstances in which it typically happens, during a drinking session while in an unfamiliar locale.
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It is essential to seek medical treatment urgently if you suspect you have consumed methanol, with the risk of blindness, coma, and death increasing with every passing hour.
This is because your body will begin to metabolize the bootleg booze after a matter of hours, flooding your organs with the toxic byproducts of methanol and causing potentially irreparable damage.
Medical experts say it is critical to seek help straight away as treatment for methanol poisoning is most effective within the first 10 to 30 hours after the toxic substance is consumed.
Longer delays in treatment can cause permanent damage and increases the risk of death, which makes spotting the tell-tale signs of methanol poisoning critically important.
Symptoms of methanol poisoning
According to the Travel Aware campaign, identifying the early signs of poisoning can be tricky because many of the early red flags will appear similar to normal alcohol intoxification.
However, you can keep an eye out for the following:
- An unusually fast onset of drunkenness as methanol will hit harder and faster than normal alcohol, with vomiting, a loss of balance, poor judgment, and a sudden feeling of drowsiness likely to set in after a small amount of drinking.
- Within 12 to 48 hours, the symptoms become more severe, with abdominal pain, vertigo, hyperventilation, breathlessness, blurred vision and/or blindness, coma and convulsions likely during this window of time.
- Visual symptoms of methanol poisoning can vary but all should trigger an immediate medical response, with blurred vision, issues with looking at lights, tunnel vision, and visible static all possible during this 48-hour period.
How to avoid methanol poisoning
It will not always be possible to avoid drinking adulterated alcohol when traveling in some parts of the world, but there are ways to lower your risk of being served toxic methanol.
- Stick to licensed establishments as hotels, popular bars, and nightclubs are less likely to serve methanol-laced booze to their customers. Though, in the case of Holly and Bianca, it is understood that the toxic booze was served at their hostel.
- Avoid drinking alcohol that comes from unlabeled bottles, or that is sold to you as a homemade spirit. Similarly, stick to drinking from sealed bottles, as they are less likely to have been tampered with.
- Think twice about drinking extremely cheap alcohol, or booze that is served in large quantities like the cocktail buckets frequently offered in destinations popular with young people.
Seeking immediate medical help will allow medics to treat these symptoms and prevent the methanol from continuing to damage your organs.
Doctors will typically give patients ethanol (pure alcohol) to flush the toxic substance out of your system, or supply you with Fomepizole to prevent the methanol from metabolizing. In more extreme cases, they might decide dialysis is necessary.
William Morgan