New Zealand tourist may have died from insecticides

Added by Monique Robinson on May 12, 2011

Sarah Katherine Carter, 23, and her two friends fell ill on February 3 while staying at the Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand.

 

Ms Carter’s companions recovered, but she died the next day at the Chiang Mai Ram Hospital from a heart attack and kidney failure.

Early reports said eating toxic seaweed cost Ms Carter her life, but an investigation aired by New Zealand’s 60 Minutes program on TV3 found traces of the insecticide chlorpyrifos, used to kill bedbugs, in the hotel room Miss Carter was staying in.

A United Nations scientist Ron McDowall said the symptoms Ms Carter and the other tourists had suggested they had died from an over exposure to the toxic chemical.

An elderly British couple, a Thai tourist guide and a Canadian man died after staying at the same hotel or using its facilities. Two other women staying at a different hotel in Chiang Mai died in similar circumstances within one month.

Ms Carter’s father Richard said he would like to know what really caused his daughter’s death.

Her mother Anna said she hoped action would be taken to prevent other tourists from dying.