British backpacker dies after drinking 'poisoned gin' in Indonesia

Updated



A British backpacker has died after drinking poisoned gin while trekking through the jungle in Indonesia.

Cheznye Emmons, 23, a beauty therapist from Essex, was on holiday with her boyfriend, Jack Cook, when she fell ill just hours after drinking from a bottle labelled gin that they bought from a local shop.

However, it turned out that the drink had been tainted with methanol, an extremely poisonous substance that is known to cause kidney failure, blindness, seizures, and death.

Two other travellers, including one from Hungary, also fell ill after drinking the 'gin'.

Cheznye complained that her sight was starting to go, but it took several hours after the problem developed to make it through the jungle to the nearest eye clinic.

She was referred immediately to a hospital in Medan, Sumatra, where she was put in an induced coma, reports the Evening Standard.

Her parents, Pamela and Brenton, flew out to be by her bedside, but on 25 April, made the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support machine.

Cheznye's brother, Michael Emmons, 33, told the Daily Telegraph: "From what we understand, the shop would have poured the gin out of the original bottle and then replaced it with methanol.

"It was in the original bottle with the gin label on it.

"As far we're aware, the shop that sold the alcohol has been shut down and there's a police investigation.

"The British embassy is also looking into it."

According to the Daily Mail, high taxes have pushed up prices of wine, beer and spirits, with some stretching spirits with their own homemade tipples. The Evening Standard reports that methanol is a by-product of bad distillation techniques.

Unfortunately, this is not the only known case of methanol being found in drinks passed off as something else.

In 2009, 25 people, including two Britons, died after drinking a batch of 'arak' tainted with methanol in Bali.

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