Bride, 54, dies on her honeymoon after eating fish full of toxic algae
a neWLyWed died on her Mexican honeymoon from a heart attack caused by eating a fish contaminated with toxic algae.
Christine Fensome, 54, had appeared fit and healthy when she went out for dinner with her new husband, andy Bennetts.
The gym-going mum-of-three then enjoyed a show with Mr Bennetts, 58, before the pair returned to their hotel and went to bed.
But Mrs Fensome collapsed during the night, was taken to hospital and died soon after. The couple had only wed ten days earlier on September 17, in her home village of Burghill, Herefordshire.
a post mortem examination found she had died from ciguatera – a form of food poisoning – after eating a grouper fish contaminated with mercury. The foodborne illness is caused by eating fish contaminated with a toxin from a plankton found on coral, algae and seaweed.
The toxin becomes more concentrated as it passes up the food chain from small herbivorous fish to larger carnivorous ones, such as barracuda and grouper. It is odourless and tasteless and cannot be removed by conventional cooking.
Mrs Fensome’s mother, Sybil Bowyer, 79, from Hereford, said: ‘They had gone out to a restaurant before they went and watched a show and Chris had fish.
‘She made it to the show and they had a nice evening before going back to the hotel. Then they went to sleep but andy says she woke up in the night with terrible sickness and diarrhoea with funny sounds coming from her throat.
‘She just got worse so an ambulance took her to hospital and within ten minutes of arriving the doctors told andy she had died.’
Just two days before she fell ill, Christine had posted photos on Facebook showing the couple enjoying their honeymoon in Cancun. Mrs Fensome’s first husband, Craig, was killed in a hit-and-run crash in 2004, aged 41. Their daugh- ter, Hayley Fensome said the tragedy left her mother as a recluse until she met Mr Bennetts seven years ago. The 29-year-old added: ‘I used to cry to Mum that my dad would not be able to walk me down the aisle and she would tell me she would be there to walk me down the aisle. now I haven’t got anyone.’