THIS week another Australian died in Asia after drinking a potentially
fatal cocktail. Darwin man, Kane Scriven, died after a night of drinking in
Laos. He was 40-years-old.
It’s not the first time this has
happened, in fact in recent years this has become an all too common occurrence.
Last year I ran a piece on “5 notorious, and potentially dangerous, party spots
in Asia“. Sadly cases continue to support this notion.
The Sydney Morning Herald ran a
summary in today’s paper of recent deaths:
Just over a week ago, Denni
North, 33, died after being found barely conscious beside a pool in Bali.
Perth man Liam Davies, 19, died
last week after suffering methanol poisoning from a drink on the Indonesian
tourist island of Lombok.
Melbourne man Sebastian Eric
Faulkner, 21, plunged to his death from the ninth floor of a hotel in Phuket on
new year’s day.
Laos has become a popular
destination for mainly young Australian adventure travellers.
Three Australians died in the
country within a month last year, two of them from tubing, a sport involving
floating down a river.
Click here for links to stories
about these cases: Denni North, Liam Davies, Sebastian Eric Faulkner.
While obviously alcohol and water
don’t mix, it’s sometimes the actual content of the alcohol that is causing the
problem.
There have been a number of cases
involving alcohol poisoning. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
An 18-year-old Australian school
leaver was blinded in Bali last month and in September 2011, Perth-based rugby
player Michael Denton died after consuming arak – which is distilled from rice
or palm sap and described as a colourless, sugarless beverage with a 20 to 50
per cent alcohol content.
Also in 2011, Newcastle nurse
Jamie Johnston suffered brain damage and renal failure after drinking a
methanol-laced cocktail in Indonesia.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob
Carr is asking Indonesia to regulate its drinks better in tourist areas. The
Australian Medical Association said the sale of drinks containing methanol
could be likened to manslaughter.
Methanol is sometimes added to
drinks to make them more alcoholic but it can induce vomiting, headaches,
gastric pain, blindness, coma, liver failure and even death.
According to stuff.co.nz
incidents of methanol poisoning have risen since an Indonesian Government crackdown
caused taxes on foreign drinks to skyrocket.
Whether the Indonesian government
can make a difference or not, Aussie travellers should take heed of these cases
and exercise caution.
Liam Davies’ aunt gave this
advice:
“The only way to be safe is to
make sure you drink from a sealed bottle and don’t drink the local cocktails,”
Mrs Prentice said.
She said all tourists heading to
Indonesia needed to be made aware of the risks and was surprised the Australian
and New Zealand governments were not doing more.
“It needs to be that you can’t
get into Bali without seeing a sign or being given information about the
dangers of these drinks.
“If governments are the way to
get that into force then yeah, they should be advising tourists.
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