BBC News
When Calum Macdonald arrived at the Vietnamese border, he couldn’t read the administrative forms in front of him. All he could see was a “kaleidoscopic blinding light”.
He had just stepped off an overnight bus with his friends from the popular tourist destination of Vang Vieng in Laos.
The day before, the group had been staying at a hostel where free whisky and vodka shots were offered to guests. Calum was mixing them with soft drinks.
It was only at the border that he suspected something might be wrong with his sight – which he told his friends.
“I remember having this sort of kaleidoscopic, blinding light in my eyes and to the point at which I couldn’t see anything.
“[We agreed] it was strange but we thought it was food poisoning and the light I was seeing was some kind of sensitivity,” he tells BBC Breakfast.
But when they arrived at their destination in Vietnam, it was clear something was seriously wrong.
“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.'” The lights were already on.
Calum, 23, is now blind and telling his story for the first time. He was one of several victims of a mass methanol poisoning in Vang Vieng last November.
Six people died. Calum knew two of them – Danish girls he had met on a night out.
All had been staying at the town’s Nana Backpacker Hostel.
Calum is now working with the families of three other British people who died following methanol poisoning in South East Asia.
They are calling on the Foreign Office to be clearer about the dangers people face when booking holidays in countries where methanol poisoning is a concern.
Simone White was one of those people.
The day after Calum left Vang Vieng, Simone drank free shots at the hostel. Earlier she’d sent her mum a text message saying this was the best holiday she’d ever been on.
Simone was admitted to hospital in the following days and a friend called her mother Sue to inform her of what had happened. Later, she rang again to say Simone was in a coma.
Sue booked a flight immediately but, before she could take off, she received another call in the middle of the night from a doctor in Laos who was treating Simone.
“[He said] you need to give permission for urgent brain surgery or she’s not going to survive…
“I flew out the next day knowing she was going through surgery and I expected the worst, to be honest.”
The 28-year-old died in hospital from methanol poisoning.
“It’s very hard to come to terms with what’s happened,” Sue says. “Nothing is going to bring Simone back.”
Methanol is a type of alcohol commonly found in cleaning products, fuel and antifreeze. It is similar to ethanol, which is used for alcoholic drinks, but is more toxic to humans because of the way it is processed by the body.
Alcoholic drinks can become contaminated with methanol if they are manufactured poorly.
It is a known problem with cheap spirits in South East Asia where hundreds of people are poisoned each year, according to the charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
If you consume one of these contaminated drinks and suffer methanol poisoning, symptoms can include dizziness, tiredness, headaches and nausea.
For many people it feels similar to a normal hangover, which makes it difficult to know if you have been poisoned or just had a few too many drinks.
After 12-48 hours, more serious problems can emerge like seizures and blurry vision. In severe cases, it can lead to total blindness and leave sufferers in a coma.
As little as 30ml of methanol can be fatal to humans, says the MSF.
If diagnosed within 10-30 hours after consumption, methanol poisoning can be treated successfully with dialysis.
Kirsty McKie, 38, died in 2022 but it was not the result of accepting free shots.
She had been enjoying drinks at home with a friend ahead of a night out in Bali – the Indonesian island where she had been living and working for eight years.
Her friend, Sonia Taylor, said they both felt like they had a particularly bad hangover the next day before Kirsty was taken to hospital for treatment.
Sonia had also drunk the contaminated alcohol, but survived.
“We had no idea,” says Sonia. “That’s probably been the hardest part for me, not knowing why you live and somebody else dies… It doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason as to why.”
On Sumatra, another Indonesian island, Cheznye Emmons died after drinking gin that was later found to contain 66,000 times the legal limit for methanol in drinks.
Cheznye’s mother Pamela tells the BBC: “I think the worst part about that… [was] just before she started having a fit, when she first arrived at the hospital, she said to her boyfriend: ‘I’m really, really scared.’
“And that was basically the last time [she spoke].”
Calum’s advice to tourists is to avoid free drinks and spirits in general. “There are lots of lovely beers in south-east Asia, which I’m sure people would really enjoy.”
He says learning of the deaths of the two Danish girls he met in Vang Vieng changed his perspective about his blindness.
“Part of the way that I [had] dealt with it was to bury my head in the sand… I did really feel like, in many ways, my life wasn’t worth living.”
Calum is now learning to use a cane and hopes to apply for a guide dog soon.
He adds: “[The deaths] made me realise that I was very lucky and I felt very grateful that, although I had some difficult consequences, a lot of people did have it worse.
“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.”
The Foreign Office described methanol poisoning and counterfeit alcohol as a “serious problem in some parts of the world” and said it was working with local authorities and the travel industry to tackle the issue.
“We seek to make clear the risks to British people travelling abroad and we raise awareness through our travel advice and Travel Aware campaign.”
