NOVICHOK VICTIM IN NEW FIGHT FOR LIFE
Nerve poison survivor feared to have potentially lethal meningitis
He was in a bad way. His system seemed to be failing. MATTHEW ROWLEY FEARS FOR HIS BROTHER
NOVICHOK survivor Charlie Rowley is back in hospital and being treated for deadly meningitis, according to his brother.
Last night Charlie, 45 – poisoned by the nerve agent which killed his girlfriend – was once again fighting for life.
His worried brother Matthew, 47, thinks Charlie caught the potentially life-changing illness after being weakened from battling novichok.
Charlie is in Salisbury District Hospital, where he and Dawn Sturgess were treated for the type of poison used in the attempted killing of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. In an exclusive inter- view, Matthew revealed how Charlie called 999 after temporarily losing his sight. He said: “He was in a bad way and I wasn’t sure he was going to make it.
“All of his systems seemed to be shutting down. He can see again now, but he’s still got double vision.
“They think it’s meningitis. That’s what he’s being treated for but they’re still doing tests to find out more. It looks like he got it from his body being run down by
the novichok. I think he got released too early.”
Meningitis, an infection of the brain and spinal cord membrane, can cause deadly blood poisoning and permanent brain or nerve damage.
Charlie and mum-ofthree Dawn, 45, of Amesbury, Wilts, were admitted to hospital on June 30 after she sprayed herself with novichok, mistaking it for perfume. Charlie was in a coma for 10 days but recovered and was released from hospital after a month. Dawn died on July 8. Salisbury’s Queen Elizabeth Gardens, where they found the bogus scent, was finally declared safe and reopened by police on Friday. This month a probe found a two-person Russian hit team carried out the poisonings. The Kremlin denies any involvement. A spokesman for the hospital refused to comment on Charlie but said: “Patients are discharged when they are medically fit to leave.”