‘Avoid at all costs’: Laos poisoning survivor’s message to travellers

She lived. Her best friend didn’t. Now, one survivor of Laos’ methanol poisoning tragedy is sounding the alarm.

Almost eight months on from the Laos methanol poisoning, one of the survivors is speaking out on how they were failed by the small Southeast Asian nation and how prospective travellers are able to protect themselves from the dangers of bootleg alcohol.

In November 2024, six people died after drinking alcohol suspected to be contaminated with methanol at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in Vang Vieng Laos. Two of those were 19-year old Australians Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles.

Bethany Clarke, from the UK but now living in Brisbane, was one of the lucky survivors of the poisoning; however, childhood best friend Simone White – whom Ms Clarke was travelling with at the time – was not so fortunate.

Ms White’s mother was faced with the tragic decision to turn off her life support after she suffered irreversible brain damage resulting from the poisoning.

Simone White at the hostel where the poisoning occurred. Picture: Supplied

The fatal, and seemingly harmless, shots. Picture: Supplied

Speaking to NewsWire, Ms Clarke said the shortcomings of Laotian infrastructure meant travellers should carefully consider whether a visit was worth the risk.

“We can’t be enticing people to go to Laos, far from it. I think our message would really be to avoid it at all costs because they can’t run a thorough investigation,” she said.

“If you happen to die in Laos, there’s no way that you’d get a legitimate medical evaluation and those Danish girls (Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21), they didn’t even have a post-mortem because they were told that they couldn’t do one because of the embalming procedure.”

Ms Coyman and Ms Sorensen were found dead in their hostel room after they had reportedly been vomiting blood for 13 hours.

Bethany Clarke is now based out of Brisbane and is calling for more education on the dangers of bootleg alcohol. Picture: Lachie Millard

“We were diagnosed with food poisoning, which is completely incorrect,” Ms Clarke said.

“We weren’t even displaying symptoms in relation (to that). I wasn’t displaying symptoms like nausea or diarrhoea or vomiting, so I don’t even know how you’d come to that conclusion.

“It’s just that doctors are not trained (properly).”

Ms Clarke said the severity of the incident was compounded by the victims’ own inability to think and function as the effects of methanol made its way through their bodies.

“I think because my brain wasn’t working, there were little red flags during that following day, but it’s only afterwards that I’ve sort of been able to realise that I should have listened more to those. I just wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t able to think straight,” Ms Clarke said.

“At the kayaking experience when we were just having to lay down, we weren’t able to sit up straight and paddle. That definitely should have been a red flag because that’s never happened to me before, an inability to sort of move my body.

“Just really, really fatigued. And then later on, when Simone stopped breathing normally and wasn’t able to look at me properly, that was also when I knew that there was a huge problem.

“I just felt completely powerless because I couldn’t even think straight myself.”

Ms Clarke and Ms White went on a river experience the day after the poisoning but were unable to perform basic tasks like sitting up and paddling. Picture: Supplied

The pair were best friends. Picture: Supplied

Now Ms Clarke is campaigning for greater awareness, education and preventive measures against similar incidents.

As part of the campaigning, Ms Clarke has started a petition proposing airports display clearly visible signs, distribute leaflets and have mandatory guidance counters with information on methanol poisoning.

“I think the depth of knowledge will only really come with the formal education in schools and that’s why we’re trying to think of how we can do that in a way that’s going to act as a scare tactic for young people,” she said.

“Whether it’s some kind of video, where we can re-enact what happened in Laos and how quickly things started to deteriorate, some of the other shocking things that happened, like the Danish girls who were vomiting blood and various things like that, which no one would ever really imagine could happen after drinking shots at a hostel bar.

“I think people may even think, ‘Oh, well, it won’t happen to me’, but if you’re shown the facts and we’ve got pictures of those drinks and what we drank, you see it’s easy to get into these situations unless you know why you shouldn’t do something.”

Originally published as ‘Avoid at all costs’: Laos poisoning survivor’s message to travellers