I screwed up big time... I think I am going to die
Heartbreaking final text of 21-year-old killed by an overdose of slimming pills
A STUDENT sent a text saying ‘I think I’m going to die’ just hours after taking an accidental overdose of a diet pill she had bought online, an inquest heard yesterday.
In a message from hospital, 21-year-old Eloise Parry told her university lecturer and tutors that she had ‘screwed up big time’.
miss Parry, who was known as Ella, admitted she had ‘binged all night’ on pills containing the highly toxic substance dinitrophenol (DNP) and apologised for ‘being so stupid’.
‘no one is known to survive if they vomit after taking DNP. I am so scared,’ she said.
That afternoon, medics desperately tried to save her life but she died just hours later after ‘burning up from within’.
An inquest yesterday heard how miss Parry, who had a history of bulimia, died on April 12 after taking eight unlicensed diet tablets containing DNP, which she had bought online.
The industrial chemical – historically used as an explosive and herbicide – was the subject of an Interpol warning notice issued to 190 countries in may.
Yet it is not a controlled substance in the UK, despite being linked to several previous deaths. It is believed miss Parry had been purchasing the drugs online for several months.
Her mother, a chemistry teacher from Condover, Shropshire, did not know she was taking the substance, but miss Parry had opened up to her sister Rebecca and close friend Jade Andrews.
Rebecca, 17, told the inquest: ‘For a few years she had difficulty with her eating, body image and her want to lose weight.’
miss Andrews said miss Parry had shown her a bag of 20 red and yellow capsules along with yellow powder when they had met up four days before her death.
A police investigation is continuing to establish who supplied miss Parry with the tablets, which may
‘Sorry for being so stupid’
have originated in Europe or Canada. One website selling DnP has already been closed down.
Analysis of miss Parry’s phone and computer had revealed she had used website PayPal for the transaction and paid in US dollars.
It was also revealed that miss Parry had researched the dangers of DnP eight days before her death and that on the morning she died she had purchased two batches of the pills. After yesterday’s hearing, miss Parry’s mother Fiona, 51, made an impassioned plea for tighter controls on the toxic drug.
Coroner John Ellery yesterday said he would urge the Government to review the classification of DnP, which is often marketed as a ‘fat-burning’ pill.
The inquest at Shropshire coroner’s court heard miss Parry had struggled with an eating disorder and was seeking medical help for her condition.
Only a month before her death, she had been admitted to hospital and doctors had witnessed her dependence on the deadly pills.
On the day she died, miss Parry sent her final text to a lecturer and tutors at Glyndwr University in Wrexham, where she was on course for a first-class degree in childhood and family studies, after driving herself to hospital.
‘I screwed up big time. Binged/ purged all night and took four pills at 4am,’ the message read. ‘I took another four when I woke and I started vomiting soon after. I think I am going to die. no one is known to survive if they vomit after taking DnP. I am so scared.’
The message, sent at 11.31am, continued: ‘I am so sorry for being so stupid. Thank you for everything. I never deserved it. Please pass on my absolute appreciation for all that you have done for me. Thank you more than words. Ella.’
A case review from Royal Shrewsbury Hospital added that when miss Parry had been admitted on April 2 she had taken DnP on the ward and was ‘ psychologically dependant’ on the drug.
In the nine months before, miss Parry had had a total of 36 appointments with her GP – either on the phone or face to face. In a statement, Dr Carla Ingram described the student as a ‘deeply troubled and very intelligent young woman’.
District coroner John Ellery concluded her death was accidental as a result of a drug overdose.
He pledged to write to the relevant Whitehall department to ‘see whether DnP should be a classified substance’. ‘That would be a positive outcome for this inquest,’ he added.