SOMETHING IN THEIR ROOM DID KILL MY PARENTS
Daughter of British holidaymakers who died in Egyptian hotel tragedy demands the truth
THE daughter of a British couple who died in a hotel in Egypt demanded the truth about the tragedy yesterday.
Talking about the final hours of her parents, Kelly Ormerod said they were killed by “something in their
room” as she arrived back in Britain from the family holiday in the resort of Hurghada.
Just hours after touching down the devastated mother of three told about the distressing final hours of her “fit and healthy” parents John and Susan Cooper. And she spoke of a strange smell the night before they died.
As the family face an agonising 10-day wait to find out the cause of their death, Kelly insisted: “I can only have my opinion on what’s gone on, but there’s something that happened in that room that killed my parents.”
The Coopers, from Burnley, were on a “holiday of a lifetime” with Thomas Cook, staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the Red Sea resort.
Kelly, 40, said her 69-year-old father John died “before her eyes” in their hotel room. Her mother Susan, 63, a Thomas Cook employee, was rushed to hospital where she also died.
Kelly insisted there was “something suspicious” behind the deaths.
Unwell
Speaking about the family’s ordeal in detail for the first time, Kelly said: “The night before they died we went for a family meal together.
“Mum and my daughter went back to their bedroom on their own. As soon as they went into the bedroom, my daughter said they could smell something that was a little bit funny, that wasn’t right.
“All they did was spray a little bit of perfume to try to eliminate the smell.
“They then fell asleep. My daughter woke up and said she felt very unwell with the smell and she wanted to come and return to my room.
“So my dad came up to my room at about 1.30am with my daughter. He was fit and healthy and we said good night, see you tomorrow.”
Speaking from her Burnley home, Kelly said her parents did not come down to breakfast the next day so she went to check on them.
She said: “At 11 o’clock I went to knock on the door to see if they were just having a bit of a lie in and didn’t want to be bothered, and as I opened the door I could see that my dad was extremely ill.
“He was staggering back to the bed. Mum was laid on the bed. And I could tell there was something seriously wrong with them.” She said her father told her he was “really, really poorly”. She called a doctor who had a look at them both, panicked a little bit” and called a second one. “They didn’t really see to mum because they could see that dad was more ill and he took priority,” she added. They tried basically to save his life and they couldn’t. They did CPR on him but nothing could help him, nothing could save him. You could see in a matter of minutes, you could see him dying. I was there watching it the whole time.”
Her mother was rushed to hospital. “She was wheeled into the emergency room but unfortunately half an hour later they came out and told me that she was dead.
“It was awful and they both died exactly the same way. I saw my dad pass away and I thought mum would survive and she didn’t, she went exactly the same way.”
She said they were “the best parents anybody could wish for,” adding: “Dad worked full-time as a builder, and mum worked part-time for Thomas Cook in the foreign exchange.
“Mum was fit and healthy. We used to go to the gym two or three times a week and dad was the same. He was an active walker. A lot of people got the Egyptian tummy, but they didn’t even get that,” she said.
“I don’t think it was specifically an individual’s fault for the deaths. Whether they’ve inhaled something that poisoned them, I don’t know.”
Her comments came as food, water and air conditioning at the hotel are all being probed.
The family will “hopefully” find out the results of the tests in 10 days, the chief executive of Thomas Cook said.
Peter Fankhauser added: “We have no real evidence what caused the deaths, but what I can promise is at Thomas Cook we are doing everything to support the family and to support the Egyptian authorities to get to the bottom of it and to get to the cause.
“There is no evidence that it is a carbon monoxide poisoning. We have no evidence but I don’t want to rule out anything.
“Twenty-four hours after the couple died, we had our specialists in the hotel. They took probes of the food, of the hygienic systems, of water, as well as the air-conditioning systems.”
A technical team’s inspection of the Coopers’ room showed there were no toxic or harmful gas emissions or leaks, according to prosecutor Nabil Sadeq on Saturday.
Mr Fankhauser said Thomas Cook decided to move 300 guests out of the hotel 24 hours later as a precaution after becoming aware of an “increased number” of illnesses. He confirmed that 13 customers had food poisoning but were not in a serious condition.