Bethany Clarke opens up about final moments with best friend Simone White before horror death in Laos

For best friends Bethany and Simone, it was a night out like any other. But just hours after this video was taken, the pair were fighting for life. One didn’t survive.

When Bethany Clarke first made plans with her best friend Simone White to meet halfway between Australia and the UK to start the trip of a lifetime together — Cambodia was the destination the pair landed on first.

Seasoned travellers who had already explored China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam together, venturing to Cambodia before moving north across the border into Laos was the perfect pairing.

Given its popularity for backpackers exploring Southeast Asia, Bethany and Simone arrived in Vientiane briefly before their arrival into party-town-turned-outdoor-lovers-paradise, Vang Vieng.

The pair organised some of the more popular activities offered in Vang Vieng – including tubing down the Nam Song River and a visit to the picturesque (albeit overly popular) Blue Lagoons.

After arriving into the once notorious party town, and having spent most of the day meeting new people and drifting down the river — the friends made their way to their accommodation in town, Nana Backpacker Hostel.

Bethany Clarke pictured alongside her best friend, Simone White while in Laos.

Bethany and Simone while enjoying the popular tube adventure in Vang Vieng, Laos.

In a state of ‘cognitive decline’

The pair decided to take part in the hostel’s ‘happy hour’ downstairs from their room, to enjoy a few drinks with some of their fellow travellers.

Speaking to news.com.au from her home in Brisbane, Bethany Clarke said what unfolded over the next 24 hours she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

When they got to the hostel’s bar just after 8pm on November 19, the pair consumed between five and six vodka shots served by the hostel, which they mixed with a bottle of Sprite and some ice cubes they also purchased from the bar.

Simone White, pictured, outside the pair’s hostel Nana Backpackers in Vang Vieng.

Bethany hopes by speaking out about what happened in Laos, travellers will avoid clear liquor and drink beer instead.

At the time, Bethany and Simone thought nothing of the drinks. They tasted fine, perhaps a little diluted but there was no reason for concern.

But as the night moved on, and by the next morning — the pair started to feel an illness that to this day, Bethany cannot quite explain.

“At about quarter past 10 … maybe half 10 … I decided I’d had enough,” Bethany said.

“I don’t know whether I was already starting to get the fatigue [of the methanol poisoning] or whether it was jet lag, but I decided to go to bed and the others went on to an Irish bar. The Irish bar was the one that we’d been to the night before, so we knew that [bar] was absolutely fine.”

Bethany and Simone were lifelong friends, and had travelled parts of the world together.

Bethany said her mate Simone arrived back to their room just after midnight, and went to sleep. The next morning, the pair woke to take part in a pre-booked kayaking tour and visit the famous Blue Lagoons which they’d both been looking forward to.

“We woke up and felt slightly off … one of our friends described it as feeling drunk,” she said.

“But … I feel like when you’re drunk, you are happy. And this was a bit more … I don’t know, just a sense that there wasn’t something quite right and you couldn’t put your finger on what it was. You would never feel as fatigued as we felt that day.”

The pair pushed through, but within hours their condition got progressively worse — particularly for Simone with a loss of appetite and an inability to swim.

“We were in a state of cognitive decline, so we weren’t really thinking, we weren’t able to think clearly,” she explained of their deterioration.

“That was one of the main things … I couldn’t make many decisions. I couldn’t think straight. We didn’t have the energy to get in the Blue Lagoon and swim, which again is very unusual for us because we like doing that sort of thing.”

Bethany Clarke and Simone White stayed at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in Laos. Picture: AFP.

Nana Backpacker Hostel in Vang Vieng, Laos has been closed down. Picture: Supplied

‘We weren’t able to use our arms’

By the time the kayaking portion of the tour commenced, Bethany knew this was more than a hangover or food poisoning.

“Simone and I were having to just lay down in the backs of the kayaks … we weren’t able to actually use our arms,” she said.

“That was quite concerning. And the fact that Simone was being sick off of one of the kayaks as well, indicated that there was definitely something not right.

“I had no way of getting any help from anyone … no one really seemed to take any interest at the time. So I just had to accept my fate in a way and just continue with the rest of the morning as normal.”

Venturing back to Vang Vieng, the pair collected their belongings before boarding a mini bus bound for their next stop, Vientiane.

The pair visited the Blue lagoon in Vang Vieng, Laos, but knew things were taking a turn for the worse when they couldn’t use their arms to swim. Picture: Alamy

Bethany said she fell asleep straight away at the back of the vehicle, only to be woken to shouts that Simone was vomiting outside the bus.

“I fainted which I’ve never done before, so that should have been an alarm bell, but for some reason it wasn’t … because of this cognitive decline,” Bethany explained.

“Our [other] friend decided that we’d be taken to a hospital. So we ended up in a public hospital. They didn’t have a clue what was wrong with us … they were coming up with food poisoning, but that was not the case.”

28-year-old lawyer Simone White died after consuming a methanol laced drink while in Laos.

Simone White and Bethany Clarke, far left, in their last photo together before Simone died.

‘Simone started gasping for air’

Bethany claims the hospital did not do the correct blood tests, instead insisting on a full blood count and electrolyte panels, which failed to show methanol poisoning.

About 24 hours in, Simone started to go into respiratory distress, and from there she entered a rapid decline.

“She started gasping for air,” Bethany recalled.

“She then wasn’t able to talk to me. She wasn’t able to really look at me properly. She had her eyes open, but they were just glazed.

“She wasn’t able to concentrate on me, and they [the hospital] were saying to me, she’s really anxious. They just had absolutely no idea what to do with her … they gave her oxygen, but again, it was just not the right treatment. She needed to have dialysis at that point.”

Bethany made the decision to get Simone out of the public hospital and into a private facility. As soon as they arrived — around 28 hours after consuming the drinks — Simone was taken for immediate dialysis.

“They just said, we’ll do everything we can to save her life,” Bethany recalled.

Bethany Clarke said there was nothing suspicious about the deadly shots they were served.

The girls mixed their shots from the hostel bar with ice and Sprite.

But being in a state of decline herself, Bethany was forced to make decisions about the life of her best friend while not having full cognitive awareness herself.

“They [hospital] handed a load of forms to fill in … I was just having to wake up from being asleep and they’d say, ‘can you sign this and can you pay for this’?” she recalled.

“It was just horrendous … brain damage had occurred … she actually had five seizures during the process.”

Bethany was forced to make the call to Simone’s mother Sue to inform her they were in hospital with suspected methanol poisoning — a conversation she will never escape.

“Simone ended up needing brain surgery, which I had to ring Sue to get consent for,” she explained.

“Luckily by the time Sue arrived from the UK to Laos, Simone hadn’t actually gone in yet [for brain surgery].

“Sue literally got there as Simone was being wheeled in … obviously all her hair was shaved off. Then a few hours later we found out that although the brain surgery was sort of successful, she’d developed a bleed on that side of the brain as a result of the surgery.

“The other side of her brain was swollen as well. So at that point, they said that she’s just going to end up in a coma regardless of what we do.”

Sue had to make the decision to end her daughter's life.

‘Sue had to end Simone’s life’

Bethany and Sue were left with the excruciating wait of letting Simone “die naturally”. But because her heartbeat was still so strong, Sue had to speak with the British Embassy and plead to allow the turning off of her daughter’s life support machine.

“They [the hospital] weren’t happy initially with that idea because they’re Buddhist and they want prolonged life, not to end it,” Bethany said.

“But it was just a necessary thing that had to happen. Sue had to end Simone’s life … And she had, I think, three attempts at trying to turn the machine off, but because she had no member of staff in there, it was just agonising and took a very long time.”

Simone was one of six tourists, including two Danish women in their early 20s, an American and two Australians — Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles — who died of methanol poisoning after consuming drinks at the Nana Backpackers hostel.

Australian women Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles died of Methanol poisoning in Laos, in the same few days as Simone White. Picture: 60 Minutes

While Simone’s toxicology and urine levels of methanol presented “off the chart” readings, Bethany said hers came back far lower — which to this day still doesn’t understand why.

The hostel provided CCTV footage with Bethany, who has given permission for news.com.au to share.

The footage shows Bethany and Simone consuming their final few drinks while at the hostel bar together.

The bar and hostel where the drinks were consumed has been closed, however while investigations continue no charges have been laid.

‘Steer Clear Drink Beer’

Six months since she watched her best friend die at the hands of the silent killer methanol, which very easily could’ve taken her own life, Bethany said she wakes every morning to the thought of her lifelong friend.

“She was just the best friend that I could have asked for,” Bethany said, adding she has saved Simone’s voicemails which she replays frequently to hear her voice.

“I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like Simone again. She’d come up with suggestions as to events we could go to and restaurants we could try and holidays that we could book.

“She always had time for me and she always made the time.”

Bethany said she doesn’t want Simone’s death — or the other tourists who lost their lives that week in Laos — to be in vain.

Bethany Clarke and her best friend Simone White met when they were four.

Bethany Clarke travelled to various places around the world with Simone White, including Thailand and China.

While in Brisbane, working as a podiatrist, she set up a petition calling for the dangers of methanol poisoning to be put on the school curriculum in the UK.

“The advice from me is to ‘steer clear, drink beer’. Look up the symptoms, be mindful about where you’re drinking,” she said previously of the campaign.

“It was just horrendous being in that hospital,” she added while speaking to news.com.au. “It was very traumatic.”

“I don’t want Simone’s death to be in vain, and I don’t want other people to go through this. “So I think this is the ideal opportunity for me to start talking.

“We are really going with the Steer Clear Drink beer message, and if you really wanted spirits, you could get them from duty free because that is the only way that you’re going to know that those drinks are safe.

“It’s just not worth taking the risk.”