'Blinding light' then darkness: Laos methanol poisoning survivor speaks

A young man who survived a spate of methanol poisonings among young tourists in Laos late last year is calling on the UK government to make information about the risks more widely known.

Calum Macdonald was one of a group of people who consumed methanol-tainted alcohol at a resort in the Laotian tourist town of Vang Vieng last November.

Six people died as a result, including two young Australian women, Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones, both aged 19.

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Macdonald, 23, survived but was left blind.

Speaking to the BBC for the first time, he said staff had offered free liquor shots to guests at the resort.

But when he arrived at the Vietnamese border the next day with his friends, he said, he began to suspect something was wrong.

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"I remember having this sort of kaleidoscopic, blinding light in my eyes and to the point at which I couldn't see anything," he told BBC Breakfast.

"(We agreed) it was strange but we thought it was food poisoning and the light I was seeing was some kind of sensitivity."

But in their Vietnamese hotel, things escalated drastically.

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"We were sitting in the hotel room, my friends and I, and I said to them: 'Why are we sitting in the dark? Someone should turn a light on'," he said.

But the lights were already on.

Macdonald, who the BBC said was now learning to navigate the world with a cane, is calling on the UK Foreign Office to more widely publicise the dangers of tainted alcohol overseas.

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"I felt, given that I was lucky enough to survive, I have a bit of a responsibility to try and prevent the same thing from happening to other people," he said.

Methanol, which is found in products such as antifreeze, can prove deadly to humans even in small amounts.

It has been known to be used to manufacture counterfeit alcohol in travel destinations such as Southeast Asia, and tourists are advised to be cautious.

The government's Smartraveller website advises if methanol-tainted alcohol is a known risk of a particular destination.

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