Akash Samaro

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

It was not poi­son, but rather a com­bi­na­tion of pun­cheon and Bay Rum that led to four peo­ple falling bad­ly ill on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Three of the vic­tims were said to be clin­i­cal­ly sta­ble yes­ter­day, with one dis­charged from hos­pi­tal on Sat­ur­day.

Ini­tial­ly, mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) who re­spond­ed to the in­ci­dent were told that it was a pos­si­ble case of poi­son­ing.

The four, three men and woman, who are pre­sumed to be home­less, were slumped on the ground and froth­ing at the mouth. All were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH).

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) CEO An­tho­ny Blake said he was told by doc­tors that, “the four per­sons were ad­mit­ted with a his­to­ry of in­ges­tion of a cock­tail of Bay Rum and pun­cheon. They are all clin­i­cal­ly sta­ble. One was dis­charged yes­ter­day (Sat­ur­day), one is like­ly to be dis­charged to­day (Sun­day), while the oth­er two are ad­mit­ted for mon­i­tor­ing.”

Blake could not say how much of the sub­stance the four drank. Nor could he con­firm that they are home­less.

He did say the doc­tors be­lieved the Bay Rum was the main cul­prit.

He said ac­cord­ing to the doc­tors, “their symp­toms are like­ly due to the in­ges­tion of Bay Rum, which is mar­ket­ed for ex­ter­nal use on­ly and caus­es tox­i­c­i­ty if im­bibed.”

Mean­while, gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er Dr Joel Teelucks­ingh yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that peo­ple would be sur­prised at how many peo­ple be­lieve Bay Rum is a cheap and safe sub­sti­tute for rum. He said au­thor­i­ties should con­sid­er stronger la­bel warn­ings and re­strict­ing ac­cess to non-bev­er­age al­co­hol prod­ucts in phar­ma­cies.

Dr Teelucks­ingh said, “The pri­ma­ry tox­ic com­po­nents in bay rum are methanol and iso­propyl al­co­hol, both of which are far more poi­so­nous than ethanol (the type of al­co­hol found in bev­er­ages). When con­sumed, these sub­stances can cause se­vere poi­son­ing, lead­ing to: Nau­sea, vom­it­ing, ab­dom­i­nal pain, di­ar­rhea, dizzi­ness, con­fu­sion, slurred speech, drowsi­ness, and in se­vere cas­es, seizures or co­ma. Methanol is con­vert­ed in the liv­er to a type of acid that caus­es breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and or­gan fail­ure.”

He added, “One of the most feared com­pli­ca­tions of methanol poi­son­ing is per­ma­nent vi­sion loss, as the acid dam­ages the op­tic nerve. High dos­es can lead to kid­ney fail­ure, car­dio­vas­cu­lar col­lapse, and death if un­treat­ed.”

He said if some­one in­gests Bay Rum they should seek med­ical at­ten­tion im­me­di­ate­ly.