A British couple in their 60s, who were traveling with their daughter and three grandchildren in Egypt, are believed to have died after staff sprayed bedbug pesticides in an adjacent hotel room.
“I wouldn’t say that the work was really professional,” said a witness to the events, German tourist Dominik Bibi, in a statement heard this Tuesday at Blackburn Coroner’s Court in the United Kingdom, according to the “BBC.”
It was during a trip to Hurghada on Egypt’s Red Sea coast that John and Susan Cooper, aged 69 and 63, died in 2018 after spending the night in a hotel room. , the adjoining door of which led to another room treated with pesticides. bed bugs, according to what an investigation revealed on Tuesday.
The two sixty-year-olds who were staying at the Aqua Magic Hotel had started to feel unwell during the night, to the point where the grandfather went to take Molly, his 12-year-old granddaughter who he had to sleep in the same back to his mother, Kelly Ormerod, for the night.
Except the next day, the two Brits from Lancashire didn’t show up for lunch. That’s when their daughter found them seriously ill, she emotionally told the court.
His father’s condition would have rapidly deteriorated to the point of difficulty breathing. He was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene, British media reported.
“His eyes were kind of … a fixed, glazed look,” noted Kelly Ormerod, tears welling up in her eyes.
His mother would have started delirious, before being rushed to a hospital where she would have lost her life a little later.
According to the inquest, the couple died after possibly being exposed to an “infectious biological agent or toxic chemicals”, although the hypothesis of carbon monoxide poisoning or food poisoning was ruled out. , according to the “BBC”.
For his part, the occupant of the adjoining room, connected by an adjoining door, stated that he had noticed a strange smell, like mold or dampness, upon entering the room, and “many bed bugs on the bed and under it” , he said. in writing, according to British media.
Moved further down the hall, he allegedly saw, later in the day, hotel employees with two- or three-liter cans of pesticides, which had just left the room with duct tape to seal the room, according to the ” BBC”.
The coroner’s investigation continues.
