SPY POISON SCANDAL: SON’S FEAR
‘Nerve agent’ cop in hospital
A POLICE officer was rushed to hospital last night with symptoms of suspected nerve agent poisoning.
The A&E department at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon went into lockdown with two officers stationed outside and patients not allowed to enter or leave.
A source at the hospital confirmed its A&E was closed “until further notice”. Ambulances were re-routed to other hospitals and emergency patients were advised to go elsewhere.
A Salisbury District Hospital spokesman said the officer was later being transferred for specialist tests at Salisbury District Hospital.
They are the second officer affected by Novichok after Det Sgt Nick Bailey of Wiltshire police became seriously ill after responding to the Salisbury spy attack in March. NOVICHOK victim Dawn Sturgess suffered a heart attack and may be left brain damaged if she survives her ordeal, her heartbroken son reveals today.
His mum is now under police guard in hospital, where she is being kept alive on a ventilator.
In an exclusive interview Ewan Hope, 19, tells how he visited her there, wearing long protective gloves to above the elbow so he could hold his mum’s hand and stroke her hair.
He says: “I touched her hair through the gloves and told her, ‘I love you, Mum. I just want you to get better’.
“My whole family are grieving, upset and scared. We’re trying to stay strong for each other but there have been tears.
“I’m worried I’m going to lose my mum. She’s a people person and nice to everyone. Her kids are her life.”
Ewan says he is also speaking out because he is desperate for the Novichok that poisoned his mother to be found.
“I’d hate for any other family to go through the hell we have,” he says.
CRITICAL
Dawn, 44, and boyfriend Charlie Rowley, 45, were critically ill in hospital last night, seven days after collapsing at his home in Amesbury, Wilts.
They were poisoned by the same nerve agent used in the attack on Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in nearby Salisbury.
Recalling the fear when he was first allowed to visit Dawn, Ewan said: “Before we went into the room the doctor pulled us aside and said, ‘It could be pesticides, insecticides or Novichok’. I was shocked.
“We had to put on a blue plastic gown and long orange gloves, because they told us we can’t touch her skin-to-skin.
“They said it isn’t airborne, so we didn’t have to wear a mask or a hat.”
Speaking of the moment he first saw his stricken mum at Salisbury General Hospital, Ewan said: “She just looked like she was asleep. The doctors told us she can hear us. We were in there for about 10 minutes and then the doctor said they needed to run some more tests.
“When we came out, the doctor took us into a room and said he was pretty sure it was Novichok because she had the same symptoms as the Skripals, including foaming at the mouth.
“Things are worse for Mum, though, because they said the Skripals didn’t have heart attacks.”
The unemployed factory worker added: “In the hospital the only sound is the machines helping keep Mum alive.
“She’s got breathing tubes in her mouth and nose and 12 medications going through one drip. She also had a heated blanket on top of her.
“It’s taken a real toll because she’s only 5ft 6in and about 7st.”
Forensic inves- Picture: ROLAND LEON tigators in hazmat suits were still searching the couple’s homes as drones scoured a sealed-off playground near where they are believed to have come into contact with the substance. Officers took a sample from a windowsill at th e hostel in Salisbury