A Dundee woman who was friends with two Canadian sisters found dead from suspected poisoning in Thailand on Friday is stranded in the same resort after hospital staff confiscated her passport.
Sami Kay (24) also fell ill and spent three days in hospital. However, when she was discharged her travel insurance company refused to pay for her treatment and hospital staff retained her passport.
She has now been told she will not get it back until she pays the £400-plus bill.
Audrey and Noemi Belanger were found on Friday by a maid at at the Phi Phi Palms Hotel on the paradise island, three days after they were last seen while on a night out.
Officials said the sisters were covered in vomit, had skin lesions and were bleeding from their gums. Both women’s fingernails and toenails were blue and had blood under them.
It has been said by police that the girls did not die from foul play, however the exact cause of death has not been determined.
The bodies are to be transported to a hospital in Bangkok so post mortems can be carried out.
Speaking from the resort of Phi Phi Island, where the girls died, Sami told The Courier: ”I was just crying the whole day when I heard, it was just heartbreaking. They were lovely and I was just talking with them and dancing with them last week.”
Sami heard the devastating news when she was released from Phi Phi Island Hospital at the weekend.
”I was really ill. Food poisoning has been spoken about but it was dehydration as well. It could have been bacteria or a virus or something. The hospital is full of people with the same thing it’s shocking.
”The hospital kept my passport because the insurance company wouldn’t pay up front for my treatment. They’ve still got it and I can’t leave here until my dad pays the £400.
”I’m sure I’ll get it back from the insurance, but what if I didn’t have my dad? I’d be stuck here and I really just want to get to Australia now. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Sami says she met Audrey (20) and Noemi (26), of Pohenegamook, Quebec, as she was promoting restaurants, bars and a pleasure boat.
”My job is going out and speaking to people and handing them leaflets, taking them into bars and restaurants and chatting to them,” she said. ”The girls were lovely. I chatted to them and we ended up dancing at the club.”
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”One of my friends walked one of them home and he was arrested but they know it wasn’t anything to do with him.
”I don’t know what’s happened, they’re saying they were poisoned. There’s lots of rumours flying around. Some people said it might have been a gas leak at the hotel, other people said it could have been fumes from cleaning fluid they use in the flats.
”But you can buy all sorts of stuff here and some people say it could have been something they bought on the beach. You have to be really careful about what you buy and where you buy it from.”
Sami’s dad Dudley said: ”She thought it was a good medical and travel insurance policy she has, but apparently there is something in the small print. I don’t know what it is. But she paid about £200 for a year’s insurance.
”I phoned the British Embassy and they say that we will probably have to pay the bill first then claim it back from the insurance company. But they said that the passport actually belongs to the British Government and they had no right to confiscate it. It’s a long process and in the meantime Sami is scared now because of the deaths.”
Reports said the Thai authorities confirmed nothing had been taken from the Belanger girls’ room and the door had been locked from the inside.
”The police have determined that they had been dead for at least 24 hours,” Lieutenant Colonel Jongrak Pimthong said. ”All they found was a lot of vomit in the room.”
That, as well as traces of blood on the faces of the two women, is a sign that they may have died as a reaction to poisoning, he added.
”There was no sign of any violence or of any theft, but we did find a lot of medication out in the room, including ibuprofen, which can cause serious stomach distress.”
Three years ago on the same resort island two women, an American and a Norwegian, were found poisoned in their adjoining rooms. The deaths are still unsolved.