British girl dies in food poisoning mystery in Cambodia
A BRITISH backpacker and her friend were found dead in a Cambodian hostel yesterday apparently after taking medicine for food poisoning.
Natalie Seymour, 22, and her Canadian companion were found collapsed in a room they were sharing in the south-western city of Kampot. The women were declared dead at hospital.
Miss Seymour’s mother, Wendy Bowler, said she last heard from her daughter via a WhatsApp message in which she said she was sick.
Speaking from her home in Shefford, Bedfordshire, the 60-year-old said: ‘She wasn’t well and said she might go and get something to make her feel better.
‘The hotel manager was going up and down with drinks and told them they should go to a medical centre. They decided to sleep it off but never woke up again, or that’s what I hope.’
Cambodian officials confirmed the pair had food poisoning symptoms and are understood to have bought over-the- counter medication before going back to bed.
Mrs Bowler said her daughter left the UK last week to meet her 27-year-old Winnipeg friend, named in Cambodia as Abbey Gail Amisola, who she met last year in Bali.
She had a one-way ticket with no fixed plans to return.
Mrs Bowler added: ‘She was staying in the Monkey Republic Guesthouse with her friend, they were doing all these sightseeing things, she loved all that.
‘She told us every day where she was going to be going and what she was going to be doing – she always really wanted to travel and just wanted a break from work. I don’t know if they’ll want an autopsy to determine cause of death.’
A close female relative said: ‘She was just away having a good, innocent time. It’s all very raw just now.’
Photographs of their room show a blister pack of medication and a can of drink on the floor beside bunk beds.
Miss Seymour and Miss Amisola were taken to Kampot provincial hospital but could not be revived. Local reports suggested they were already dead when found in the hostel. Miss Seymour’s uncle, Phillip Parkin, last night wrote on Facebook: ‘ We just can’t believe this; so hard to get your head around.’
A member of management at the hostel said staff were ‘all deeply shocked and very sad for the families and friends of these two very nice women’.
He added: ‘This is in the hands of the police but there is nothing suspicious about their deaths.
‘One of the staff saw them on Monday night and asked if they were going to eat in the restaurant but they said they weren’t going to be eating. They did have a lot of water in their room.’
In a preliminary report, the General Department of Immigration in Kampot said both women were believed to have bought medication for diarrhoea and vomiting.
Miss Seymour is originally from Stotfold, near Baldock, Bedfordshire, but had moved to a flat in Bedford. Her parents split up a couple of years ago, according to neighbours. Her father Terry, an electrician, is believed to still live in Stotfold.
Medication normally available by prescription only in the UK is routinely on sale over the counter in Cambodia.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are supporting the family of a British woman who has died in Cambodia.’