Aussie traveller calls for major change at international airports after friend's sudden death
Bethany Clarke lost her childhood best friend, Simone White, after the pair drank spirits poured for them at a hostel while holidaying in Laos in November 2024. Ever since, Bethany has been campaigning to get better education out there for young Australians. She believes posters and leaflets at international airports would go a long way in helping travellers make informed choices and, ultimately, would save lives.
"I can't see the harm in having messaging in the majority of international airports. I just think it would be a sensible, very cost-effective idea," the Brisbane resident told Yahoo News. "People aren't reading the news... but if you're flying out of an airport, you're probably going to sit on a toilet... put posters on cubicle doors."
She admits she knew little of the risks before flying to Laos, where six people died after drinking alcohol suspected to be contaminated with Methanol. Among them were 19-year-old Australians Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles.
"I would have had an inkling I shouldn't drink something homemade, but if somebody's pouring out of a bottle in a bar within a hostel setting, and you've had a look at the reviews online and no one has had a bad experience, I suppose you think, 'I'm safe', and that's the trouble," she said.
Bethany has been working with other survivors and families impacted by methanol poisoning to create a video that reenacts the night she and Simone drank the alcohol in Laos, hoping to drive home how "normal" of a night it was before tragedy suddenly struck.
She believes having airports and airlines opt in to easy messaging will be a quick way to raise awareness.
"I can't really see the harm in getting airlines on board... They could just broadcast the message at the end of flights," she said.
"This happens pretty much everywhere. It's happened in Zante, Turkey, New Mexico, Costa Rica, South Africa, India. It's a widespread issue, and it's probably easier to count the countries it hasn't happened in or impacted," Bethany said, arguing that travel companies could make an immediate and lasting impact.
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Bethany believes the issue needs to be tackled head-on, and "scare tactics" could just be the best way to go about it.
"People just think, 'Oh, that won't happen to me. Those girls were probably drinking something really dodgy looking'," she said. "I think the scare tactics are actually needed to make people sit up and think, yes, this really is a problem."
Methanol is the simplest form of alcohol and its presence in home-distilled spirits can cause serious harm or death. It is closely related to ethanol, the type of alcohol normally found in beer, wine and spirits, but is much more toxic.
In bad cases of methanol poisoning, drinking safe alcohol will mean your body will process the sugar-based ethanol before metabolising the dangerous methanol, buying you time to seek medical help.
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