Methanol ‘unlikely’ to have caused Enyobeni teens’ death – expert
A toxicologist expert says it's unlikely that methanol found in the bodies of the 21 teenagers who died in the Enyobeni tavern tragedy was the actual cause of death.
"So if you mistakenly take methanol, which happens in some cases that people think methanol is normal alcohol, it will result in a series of events in the body,” says Dr Gerhard Verdoorn. He is with the Griffon Poison Information Centre.
“First of all there might be slight dizziness, but the first symptom is the loss of vision, then blindness then anything over 40mls of methanol in youth like that or an adult like me will possibly result in the death of a person but it's a slow process.
“You don't die immediately, but not an acute death in that's what they saw with the youth in the shebeen that night. The symptoms and the circumstantial evidence don't point to the methanol poisoning because of the acute events.”
He says there's definitely a cluster of possible mechanisms that compounded all at once, killing the teens celebrating the last day of school.
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Eastern Cape health officials said on Tuesday that, according to the test results so far, alcohol and carbon monoxide have been ruled out as the cause of death.
Verdoorn says the forensic pathologists will need to dig deeper and explore various contributing factors.
"That there was something wrong with the atmosphere, in other words, there was asphyxiation, not sufficient oxygen. We know that there was a petrol-driven generator in the venue that would've depleted oxygen. There was a massive cluster of people in the room together.
“So if they would be deprived of oxygen they would've likely passed out and then the deprivation of oxygen in 40 minutes can be lethal in a person, especially if they were exposed to any narcotics, which we haven't been alerted to yet, or if they were taking alcohol and we don't know what they've been smoking in that pipe.
“But when you burn tobacco or even that carbon thing they use as a heating pad for the pipe, there will be methanol liberated but not at a lethal level."
